Lady of Shadows
by shieldmaiden19
Summary: The last thing Leia Organa expected to experience on Cloud City was the brush of the Force. Now apparently, she's incredibly strong in it, and Darth Vader is taking a little too keen of an interest in her. Book One of my Lady of Shadows trilogy. AU
1. Chapter 1

**This is my first ever Star Wars fanfic so don't kill me. I was originally going to have this in 3****rd**** person narrative, but it didn't feel right so I switched it to 1****st**** person. Star Wars is owned by George Lucas, not me :( Please review!**

**Note: I know this is ESB almost verbatim, but it's necessary to set up the rest of the story, the big difference being that Leia chooses to **_**act**_** rather than submit. **

_CLANG_. The door to my cell sprang open. Two stormtroopers stood waiting. Desperate and afraid of the inevitable should I come quietly, I lunged for one trooper's gun, diving between them as I went. They tried to grab me, but their plastisteel armor hindered them as much as it protected them. I sprinted down the corridor, blaster in hand. I heard them yelling behind me, but I was too fast for them. Then the klaxon-like alarms began to sound. I dove down a side passage, but soon I discovered to my despair that it was a dead end. I felt despair seeping into my bones. I was alone in the bowels of Cloud City armed with only a blaster against the might of the Empire.

But even as I felt myself start slipping into abject misery, I heard a little voice inside my head. _ Grow a backbone already, "Princess"!_ The little voice, which sounded a lot like Han at his most aggravating, motivated me as nothing else could. I was Leia Organa, crown princess of Lost Alderran, and I was not about to let some clanking robot of a Sith destroy the only man I had ever cared for. I crept to the end of the corridor, just in time to hear the hurried tramp of a squadron of stormtroopers. I waited until they were almost abreast of my corridor, then bolted out and started shooting. They were thrown into disarray, just enough for me to escape through them, dealing out some choice kicks as I went. I sprinted back the way I came, expecting to be shot in the back at any time. To my surprise, I heard no blasters being fired. I stopped in shocked realization. They wanted me alive. They wanted me to see whatever they had in store for Han. They wanted to watch me suffer. I muttered some choice words I hadn't learned as crown princess and started running again.

I sprinted up a rise in the corridor and around a corner…only to run straight into another squadron, only this one had obviously taken measures to protect themselves. They had Han and Chebacca, both with blasters leveled at their heads. I aimed my blaster at their leader, an Imperial captain by his markings, and said, "Tell your men to drop their weapons."

He only laughed. "My dear princess, are you leaving us so soon? Lord Vader will be quite disappointed. He is looking forward to having a little chat with you after this piece of scum has his dance with carbonite," he said, dealing Han a blow over the head with his blaster. Han almost fell, crying out through gritted teeth as blood began trickling down his face. He looked up at me and said grimly, "Don't you _dare_ drop that blaster, princess." Even as he said this, the squadron that I had just escaped from came pounding up behind me, all with their blasters primed and ready. I glared at the captain in disgust. "You win," I said, throwing down my blaster. He smiled triumphantly and gestured one of the stormtroopers forward. He stepped up and handcuffed my hands behind my back. I couldn't meet Han's eyes. Chewbacca, Han and I were shoved into a forced jog with the stormtroopers behind us.

"Why did you do that?" a soft voice said in my ear.

"Han, you _know_ why I did that. You would have done the same thing," I retorted, equally as soft.

"I'm on my way to my death anyway. Why prolong it?"

I looked at him. I had only seen him this bitter once, and that was when Lando Calrissian, his so-called friend, betrayed us to Darth Vader. "Han, look at me," I said firmly. He turned slowly to me and looked me in the eye. "You have 7 to 1 odds. Wouldn't you take that in sabacc? I've known you to take much higher odds." "Yeah, but I also wasn't betting my life on those odds," he replied sarcastically, making him sound more like his normal self.

Soon we were marching up a ramp to a platform with a round black disc highlighted by glowing orange strips. The stormtrooper behind me kept a crushing grip on my arm. I had started to wonder what we were waiting for when a dark, masked figure walked down the stairs on the opposite side of the platform. I immediately felt a rush of mixed emotions – anger, hatred, but above all, fear. This _thing_ had not only destroyed my home, he was about to destroy the only man besides my father who had ever been able to make me laugh. I started struggling against my bonds, but they held fast. Chewbacca started to roar. He used his cuffed hands as a club, sending stormtroopers flying like bowling pins. Over Chewbacca's roars, I heard Han yell, "CHEWIE! Hey Chewie! Stop this! It's not doing me any good. Save your strength for a different time!" Chewbacca responded in a plaintive moan, but stopped nonetheless. "No Chewie!" Han yelled back. "Your duty now is to the princess – keep her safe! Ya got that?" Chewbacca looked over at me. I met his eyes and said quietly, "We'll get him back Chewie. I swear it." He turned back to Han and gave a mournful bellow. Han nodded solemnly at him, then turned to me. To my shame, I felt tears starting to well up in my eyes. His gaze softened as he looked at me. He lifted his bound hands and wiped away my tears. "Come on, princess, it's not all bad," he said, now back to his normal cocky self. "You won't have to put up with this scruffy nerfherder for a while, now will you?" "But that's the point!" I cried out in anguish. "I _want_ to have to put up with you." Then suddenly we were kissing as we never had before. Thousands of unsaid things passed between us. Worlds might have come and gone and we would not have noticed. Then just as suddenly, he was being pulled away by the stormtroopers. I watched, powerless to help, as he was placed in the middle of the black disc. I held his gaze, not feeling the tears stream down my cheeks. On an impulse, I cried out, "I love you." He looked calmly at me and said, "I know." I stood on the side of the carbonite pit, my pulse pounding in my ears. Chewbacca roared defiantly and tried in vain to break out of the handcuffs that bound him. Then I watched helplessly as Han, cocky and courageous Han, vanished in a rush of steam.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey everybody! I'm going back to school tomorrow, so this will probably be the last chapter for a while :( I don't own Star Wars or anything related to it.**

I stared, stricken, at the pit where Han had just vanished. First the only home I had ever known, now the only man I had ever cared about. I looked up at the spectral form of the man responsible for this heart-rending pain and felt a flood of anger such as I had never felt before. It rushed through me, consuming me.

"_I HATE YOU!"_ I yelled at Darth Vader, my tears burning me. He looked at me, unmoved. I was now struggling powerfully against the stormtroopers holding me back. "_I HATE YOU!_" I yelled again. "_YOU TOOK HIM AWAY FROM ME!"_ My fury was now so powerful that it seemed almost tangible. Then suddenly I was calm, as if I had stepped into the eye of the hurricane that was my anger. I knew what to do. Closing my eyes, I sank even farther into that eye, letting it run through me, letting it translate my anger into power. I opened my eyes. Everything looked exactly the same except that it…didn't. Every being around me had a faint white glow about them. It looked almost as if…as if it were life itself glowing through them. _Now you're starting to sound like Luke, spouting that religious bantha crap._ There was the little voice inside my head again. At the thought of Han, my anger returned. I raised my head and looked at Darth Vader. He looked as he always had, neither man nor machine and cloaked in black, but again there was that _difference_, only the glow from him was black as the night, absorbing all light. I turned to the stormtroopers holding me and said, "Enough." They let go of me, stepping back as if dazed. Now I was free. I thrust my hand out at Darth Vader, letting the anger-turned-power build up behind me. When I felt as if I could contain no more, I let it rush out in a torrent of hatred.

He stumbled back a little, then straightened, slashing his hand through my anger-power. I flinched as I saw the black glow about him expand until it was a glittering cloud of darkness. He thrust his hand in the exact same way I had at him and the black cloud swooped through him and hit me full on. But instead of crumpling (even though it had hurt me more than I cared to tell) I gathered the cloud again and hurled it at him. This time, he just waved his hand and it dissipated. _This_ time I collapsed. I lay there panting, watching as his black boots marched over to me. For a while he just stood there, that diabolical hissing noise, which I had heard was a breathing regulator echoing above me.

"Well, it seems I have found myself a new apprentice," Darth Vader's deep, metallic voice spoke from above me. I lay still, breathing hard. "You are powerful in the Force, young one." I blinked in confusion. No, that couldn't possibly be it…he was just messing with my mind…Luke was the Jedi, not me...but what if I was? Could I be more powerful than him? "I sense your turmoil. Give in to the jealousy you have for the boy and you will become more powerful than he could ever hope to be." I curled up in a ball, covering my ears. Luke was my friend. He was going to be a Jedi and save us from the Emperor. But now that I had acknowledged my jealousy, I found it that much harder to fight. "Come now. You have given in to your anger and your hatred. Now surrender to your jealousy." I couldn't hate Luke. He was my friend. But still that power kept taunting me, daring me to come after it. With a shuddering gasp, I gave in, letting the jealousy I had long kept hidden flow. "Good," Darth Vader said. "Your power has grown with that decision alone. Now rise, and come with me. We have much to discuss."


	3. Chapter 2 and a half

**Hey everybody! Apologies about the mixup :( This is the section that was supposed to be between chapters 2 and 3, but that I forgot to add. I don't own anything, please review, etc etc etc...**

I pushed myself to my feet, still feeling the remnants of my hatred thrumming through my body. It was still there, but now I had a grip on it. It was contained within the iron safe of my will.

"Bring out the smuggler," Vader ordered. A black grip descended from the ceiling, reaching into the pit. With a pneumatic hiss, it clamped onto something and pulled it up. I stifled a shriek. On the long, durracrete-grey slab of metal being hoisted up, Han was engraved in perfect detail but for one thing: his face was frozen in a grotesque expression of pain. As hard as I tried not to, the tears started flowing and the anger started rising. I reached out through the glow towards Vader's throat, then remembered that he was, well, a machine and therefore could not be choked. Then I came to. I quickly gathered my power, shoved it into the safe and slammed the door on it. _Good. You are learning control._ I flinched. This wasn't the little person in my mind that spoke with the voice of Han. This was a totally foreign presence. This voice reeked of the darkness I had seen cloaking Darth Vader. I suppressed a shudder.

So preoccupied was I with what was going on inside my mind that I barely noticed the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett inspecting the side of the slab. What did register with me were his words, "He's alive, my lord." I felt a rush of relief that seemed almost…foreign. I was so puzzled by this that I didn't notice Darth Vader talking in hushed tones with Fett, and only when he began walking away with it on a repulsorlift did I start running after them. "HAN!" I shrieked, frantically fighting to get to him. Instantly, I felt someone grab my throat, but no one was there. I was dying, fighting the darkness that I could see wrapped around my throat. Black spots began forming on my vision. I felt my body begin to give up, even though my mind was still fighting fiercely. The black spots expanded, filling my vision, until everything was dark oblivion.


	4. Chapter 3

**Hi everybody! I am intensely proud of myself right now. Two stories updated in as many days - I feel so productive :D Listening to Two Steps from Hell probably helped (my favorite music right now...)**

**Many, many, many, MANY thanks to all the people who have submitted reviews – you are awesome!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or anything related...**

**New note: If anyone had previously wondered about the sudden skip in the story from chapter 2 to this one, I added the little bit explaining what happened. It's titled Chapter 2 and a half. Enjoy :)  
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I opened my eyes. I was lying on some hard surface, draped in a thick fabric. Above me ugly fluorescent lights glared down at me. I sat up. I was in a long, low room, much bigger than my cell, but it scared me considerably more. A _darkness_ hung over the whole room, a presence that reminded me simultaneously of slowly creeping mold and blistering desert winds. It frightened me, but at the same time, it was almost...comforting. Little more than a week before Alderran was destroyed, I was there on a trip home to visit my father. He told me then that I was old enough to know the truth about myself. I was adopted. He said he knew who my parents were but he was going to save that for a different day. Alderran was destroyed eight days later as I watched, helpless. Something in that dark presence called to mind my turmoil over who my parents could be. It seemed...familiar...almost like the sight of a loved one after a long time apart...or the laughter of a long-forgotten friend. It brought back to mind things that I remembered, things that might just have been half-remembered dreams.

_The delighted laughter of a young man. The soft brown eyes of a woman who loved me. The same young man saying, "We're not going to worry about anything at the moment, all right? This is a happy moment. This is the happiest moment of my life." _

Wait. That one was new. I had never heard it in my dreams before, nor could I remember it being said to me. And it...it was almost as if it were echoing through time. _Oh yeah, SURE Princess. This superstitious excuse for religion is going to your head._ There it was. The little voice inside my head that sounded like Han at his most sarcastic. I took a deep breath in using the calming fashion taught to me by recluse monks living among Alderran's foothills. I seemed to slip into the eye of my soul's hurricane, becoming calm, opening myself.

_The woman speaks, saying, "Annie... I'm pregnant." He is silent for a few minutes, then stutters delightedly, still shocked, "That's... that's wonderful!" But the young woman is worried. "What are we going to do?" "We're not going to worry about anything at the moment, all right? This is a happy moment. This is the happiest moment of my life," the young man says reassuringly._

The conversation from the past faded away. I sat on the floor, stunned. I had just listened to two people I was almost sure were my real parents talk. "_Annie_...Who would call a man _Annie_?" I mused. "I wonder what his real name is. Or was," I quickly amended, awash with worry that I might never find him. Never had I felt so strongly the longing for the arms of the man who would always be my father, Bail Organa. At the thought of him, warm tears started to seep from my eyes. Papa – dead. It still didn't seem real, even after three years of the reality being thrust into my face. Sometimes, I found myself looking around corners for him, just waiting to rush into the comfort of one of his bear hugs. "Leia, stop deluding yourself," I whispered to myself. "He's not coming back." At this, I burst into silent tears.

I don't know how long I cried. I cried until there was nothing left but a gaping void. A void that could only be filled by my father. Despair had long before sunk into my bones, becoming a permanent part of me.

The tramp of boots approached the door to my room. I started, my heart thumping traitorously in my chest. I rubbed my face with my sleeves, not wanting whatever minion of the Emperor who had been sent to see me in such a position of weakness. The pneumatic locks on the door hissed and the door creaked open. I stayed seated, keeping my back to the door. Instead of turning to look at whoever stood poised to come in, I directed my mind at the figure standing there, probing for their identity. All at once, I lost control over all rational thought, for, standing in the doorway, was that dark figure I had come to loathe with all my heart and soul. I sprang to my feet with a lightness I didn't even know I had and spun around to land face-to-face with him. But as I extended my hands, calling on my newfound power, he held up his hand. Instantly I was cloaked in a dark presence that felt remarkably like the one I had felt when I first woke up. I stopped in wonder, then shook it off and prepared again to fight him. This was the man I hated above all others, the man who had taken everything from me. No way could the presence have been his. But again he held up his hand, this time saying, "Peace, young one. I will do no harm to you. I wish to merely talk with you."

"You'll do no harm to me? _Ha!_" I laughed derisively, keeping my hands up protectively. "It's more likely I'll do harm to you!"

"Powerful in the Force you may be, young one, but you would not be able to match me without training," his powerful voice rumbled. "I want to speak with you."

"Why?" I asked, not caring that I was being impossibly rude to the most powerful man in the galaxy, second only to the Emperor himself.

"You remind me of someone I once knew."

I lowered my hands, speechless. Darth Vader was a heartless piece of humanized machinery, not someone who had thoughts and memories and feelings. I felt the dangerous tug of curiosity that had gotten me into so much trouble when I was little. I tried to stomp it out, but it had dig its roots in for a long stay.

"If you will follow me?" he said, correctly interpreting my silence. I exited the low room, already doubting my judgment. Vader led me through a series of corridors until we reached a white door which we entered. I gasped, for not even from the Millenium Falcon had I had such an incredible view of the gas giant Bespin, from which the workers of Cloud City drew the precious gases that were prized everywhere throughout the Empire. Swirling reds, oranges, and pinks underlaid with a subtle shade of blue created a mosaic of natural beauty unable to be reproduced by even the best artists. I sat rather heavily down in one of the chairs, awed by the colorful majesty arrayed before me.

"Princess...do you know who your parents are?" Vader asked me, his voice dark and heavy.

"Of course I..." I stopped. With the discovery of my adoption, I no longer knew how to answer such a question. I steadied myself, held my head high and spoke with more calm in my voice than was in my heart, "They were Bail and Breha Organa, of the ruling family of Alderran, and I am proud to be their daughter."

Vader looked at me in silence. So long did he stare at me that I had to stop myself from squirming like a young child under scrutiny from his teacher. Finally he spoke.

"The more you speak, the more you sound like a Senator I once knew."

"What makes you say that?" I said, uncomfortable enough that I was becoming defensive, trying to turn the conversation, if you could even call it that, away from me.

"She was politician, like you, from a very young age. She could fire a blaster and miss only once out of every hundred times she shot. She had a regal bearing that drew your eyes whenever she walked into a room. She was always willing to put her personal needs behind that of her people. In fact, only once did she let her feelings take precedence over her duty."

At this, he stopped. I cocked my head a little, wondering, not for the first time, what was going on behind the plastisteel mask. Finally I had to ask, even though I had a pretty good guess what the answer was. "What did she do?"

"She fell in love."

I looked down at my hands, hands that felt just as at home holding a blaster as a bouquet of flowers. Could this mysterious woman be...No I couldn't let myself get my hopes up. Thinking like that would only distract me from what was truly important, which was destroying the Empire and getting Han back. But still curiosity gnawed at me.

"What was her name?" I blurted out.

He just looked at me, but this time I got the feeling he was sizing me up. I waited in silence, draining away my impatience even as it rushed over me.

"Padme."

Was that a catch in his voice or was I just imagining things?

"You look like her too."

Either he knew the mind games that lawyers played, revealing information that the witness doesn't know they have, setting them off balance, or...or he was being honest. Completely and totally honest. And strangely, I had the feeling that he was. I sensed that he would never lie about this person. I just had this gut instinct that she had meant a great deal to him. But wait...he was a Sith. A bunch of human organs kept alive by a machine. Why would he ever speak truth to me? But still that feeling persisted. He was not lying.

We sat there in silence for a while, he contemplating me, and I holding his gaze. Internally, my hatred of Vader was vying with my curiosity over who this Padme had been and why his memory of her was so vivid. How old was he anyway? **(A/N: He's 44)** The life support systems within that suit could keep him alive for generations! Finally, my insatiable curiosity won out and I asked, "Where was she from?"

He, like I, seemed to be unsure of what information to give and what to withhold.

"Naboo," was his answer.

Silence. Then, "Princess..."

I glanced up from my silent contemplation of this mysterious woman, the woman who was like me in so many ways. The woman who fell in love, so deeply in love that she would allow her feelings to take precedence over her duty...

"Princess...I can help you get your smuggler back."

My head turned with lightning speed. As much as I tried to stem the flow of my emotions, a tidal wave of hope rushed through me. Then I had a realization, causing my tidal wave to shrink to a mere trickle.

"But you're the one who sold him to Fett in the first place," I responded bitterly, turning away from him.

"And I can help you get him back just as easily."

I thought for a while, scrutinizing the table, using my politician's instinct to try and find any possible motive. I spoke up. "What's the catch?"

"There is no catch." Seeing my skeptical expression, he went on. "I will train you in the use of the Force. Then when you are ready, I will help you retrieve Solo from the Hutt. Once you have got him back, I will extend you a choice – to stay and keep learning from me, or to go back to the way things were with you and your ragtag Rebel band forever on the run, trying to evade me."

I looked down at my lap. Here was a collision of every desire I was feeling. My desire to destroy Vader and all that he stood for. My newly arisen desire to explore the power of the Force. And above all, my desire to get Han back. I thought for a long time, trying to find every possible outcome should I accept Vader's offer.

A knock was heard. The door creaked open, and an Imperial officer poked his head in. He caught Vader's eye.

"Excuse me, princess," Darth Vader said in his deep metallic voice, rising from his seat. "Consider my offer. I will be back for your answer tomorrow at dawn." With that, he swept out of the room.

When the door slammed shut, I felt almost _lighter_, like a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. But at the same time, I now felt burdened – burdened by the choice he had laid before me: to save my love's life at the cost of allying with the darkest _thing_ ever to trod the galaxy, or to choose to save my own life at the cost of losing Han's. I slumped in my chair, allowing myself to slip out of the politician's pose I had unconsciously assumed. I rubbed my eyes. This was going to be a long night.

**Which should she choose? **

**Please R&R!**


	5. Chapter 4

"**Sing o Muse, the anger of Skywalker's daughter, and its devastion which put pains thousandfold upon the galaxy, and the will of the Force was accomplished since that time when first there stood in conflict Anakain Luke and brilliant Leia." **

**[Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars :( ]  
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_Shick_. _Creeeeeak_. I jerked awake. Sometime during the past hours of angst over my impending decision, I must have dozed off. And now someone was opening my door. I knew enough self-defence to know that it's always better to be on your feet. I got to my feet and stood behind the door. I watched, tense, as the door inched open and a shadowy figure moved in. I called on my new-found connection with the Force and moved with lightning speed. I grabbed the figure's outstretched wrist, ducked under their arm while twisting the wrist. I applied downward pressure to their arm, forcing them to their knees.

"Holy crap, Leia! Where'd that come from?" the figure spoke, with the voice of Lando Calrissian. I looked more closely. Sure enough it was Lando, dressed in darker clothes and carrying a key card.

"What are you doing here, Lando?" I demanded, applying downward pressure on his wrist.

"AAHH! I'm...I'm here to help!" he cried out.

"Oh yeah? Just like you helped us before? By selling Han to Vader?" I demanded, feeling the anger thrum deep within me.

"Yes! I mean, no! I mean...it doesn't matter right now. Fett took off for Tatooine six hours ago. And that's not the worst of it – Luke landed here about two hours ago, and Vader went to fight him. Luke escaped, but only just – his right hand is missing, cut off, I think. He's in really bad shape, but he refused to leave without you. AUGH!" (I had twisted his arm harder) "I'm not kidding, Leia! You've _got_ to get out of here. "Chewie, back me up on this!"

An unmistakable Wookie bellow came in from the doorway. I eased up on Lando's wrist, but still didn't let go. "You know very well, Lando Calrissian, that I don't trust you, so don't you dare try something sneaky, or I'll be forced to break your arm. Understood?" I asked him, and he nodded in response. In one moment of clear understanding, I had made my decision. "Now I want you to listen up very closely: I have a way to get Han back, and it means staying here. And you can tell Luke..."

"Tell me what?" a weak voice said. I looked to the doorway. Chewbacca pushed the door open wider, then turned so that I was facing his back. Strapped to his back was Luke. I almost gasped. Bruises colored every bit of skin I saw. His nose was crooked, freshly broken, was my guess. And where his right hand should have been was a mass of grimy, bloodstained cloths. "Tell me what, Leia?" he said again, his breathing slightly raspy. At least one broken rib, maybe two, I guessed again.

Even though I was sustaining eye contact with Luke, I continued to address my message to Lando. "Tell Luke that I have a way to get Han back, and that I've got to stay here. Darth Vader has made a deal with me: if I stay and learn the ways of the Force from him, he will help me rescue Han from Jabba. And tell him that nothing he says will persuade me to leave."

Luke gaped, aghast. "Leia! Don't do this! He's a Sith! You'd be giving yourself up to the dark side! Look at what he's done to you and you alone! Think about what he's done to the galaxy! Is it really worth it?" He broke off, coughing.

I just looked quietly at him, then said softly but fiercely, "And tell Luke that I will do anything, _anything,_ to get Han back. And there's nothing he can do to stop me." I yanked Lando to his feet. "You all had better clear out. The stormtroopers will be coming soon." I all but shoved them out of the door.

I looked up at Chewbacca. "Remember that oath I swore to you before Han got frozen?" He nodded, moaning quietly. "I'm going to fulfill that oath, but in my own way. I don't want you to get caught, so take them and get out of Cloud City. Find the Rebel fleet if you can. Just get away. Ya got that?" I said, trying to imitate Han. He moaned a little, but obeyed and led Lando out, Luke still strapped to his back.

"Leia, we have a plan! We're going to get Han out on our own!" Luke cried out in anguish. "Leia, you can't do this, he's my..." He broke off, the sound of his coughing fading down the hall.

I stood there for a while, the rush of that split-second decision throbbing in my veins. It both thrilled and frightened me. I breathed in, steadying myself.

There was no turning back now.

**Please review! **

**PS. If anyone can tell me what story I was referencing in my intro, I'll do a promo for one of their stories :)  
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	6. Chapter 5

**I know much doesn't happen in this chapter, but bear with me. Many thanks to all those who submitted reviews for the last chapter! I don't own Star Wars...**

After refusing to follow Luke, I didn't slept a wink. The more I thought about that encounter, the more I realized just how deep my jealousy for him went. Sure, the big reason I was staying was Vader's promise to return Han, but another, more subtle reason was that I was happy to be getting something I had been previously denied, something Luke had gotten that I hadn't. It sounded petty and childish, but it certainly didn't feel that way to me. It went so much deeper, almost like the roots of the creeping charlie plant that had infested my garden as a child. All it took was one little seed, and soon roots would be set down, and it would start to spread, forming a network of interlaced roots so dense that it was almost impossible to pull up. I rubbed my eyes, looking around the room for some indication of the time for what was probably the five-hundredth attempt that night. Nothing. Then I noticed something. The shifting gases of Bespin in front of me were starting to glow. The light of the rising sun had to be hitting it! It was dawn.

Right on cue, the tramp of boots echoed down the hall toward my room. Closer...closer...closer...They were at my door. I arose from my chair and faced the doorway, putting on my politician's face. The door opened. Darth Vader, my greatest nightmare, strode in.

"Have you reached a decision, princess?" he asked, his dark, metallic voice echoing slightly through the room.

I held my head high. "I have,"

"And what, may I inquire, is it?" His voice was light and conversational. In that instant, I had the strangest feeling that he already knew what my choice was. Call it intuition, call it whatever you like, I somehow _knew_ that he had made the very same decision at some point. It was becoming eerie how similar we were. No! I couldn't think like that. I was nothing like him. He was a heartless monster kept alive by machines. I had a heart and soul and was willing to give myself up to him to save someone's life. We were nothing alike.

I locked away my hatred for him and submitted myself completely to my love for Han. Kneeling before him, I closed my eyes and said, "I accept you as my teacher, and in return, after one year of study, you will help me retrieve Han from Jabba the Hutt."

Darth Vader inclined his head ever so slightly and said, his metallic voice rumbling, "I accept you as my student, and after teaching you for one year, I will assist you in retrieving your smuggler. Rise, princess. I have much to teach you."

**Please review!**


	7. Chapter 6

**Sorry about the long wait! Thank you so much for reviewing, I don't own Star Wars, so on and so forth...**

I stood up and followed Vader as he swept from the room. I followed him through the labyrinthine passageways honeycombing the depths of Cloud City, keeping my emotions in check. On and on we walked. I started to wonder if he ever tired. _Gee, I wonder...Of course not, idiot! He's a freakin' machine!_ My inner Han said.

Vader turned to me and said, "I am surprised at your patience, Princess. Or your control over your impatience, whichever it is."

"Politics is a game of waiting, my lord," I responded more calmly than I felt. "If you don't cultivate a shadow of patience, you're dead in the water. I have learned that people in high authority have their eccentricities. I can wait."

"Eccentricities?" his dark voice rumbled. Good, he had risen to my bait. "You also are in high authority, princess – what are your 'eccentricities', as you so call them?"

"Fishing," I responded.

"Fishing is risky out here in the wilds, Princess."

"Only for those who don't know how to."

"Do you prefer bait-hook-line or net fishing?"

"You tell me. What do you prefer?"

He paused in his relentless stride for a moment to look at me.

"Vaporization," was his answer. I barely concealed the chill that went down my spine. Vaporization was a fishing technique favored by incredibly rich thrill seekers. The fishermen (or women) used a radiation gun that, when detonated, caused a shock wave large enough to vaporize a large body of water, leaving the fish flopping and gasping out their last breaths on dry ground. Inwardly, I cursed myself. A person who responded to the question of their favorite technique with "vaporization" would have absolutely no qualms about killing an overly inquisitive person like myself. Well, then I would just have to be that much more careful in my inquiries into Darth Vader's past. I was going to find out the truth about this man if it killed me.

Soon we were near the landing docks of Cloud City. Waiting was Darth Vader's personal shuttle. My heart fluttering frantically in my chest, I mounted the entrance ramp behind him. The interior of the shuttle was as void of life as the man who flew it – all outlets, harsh fluorescents and plastisteel, no warm colors or soft lights. It was a very bleak ship. I found myself missing the Millennium Falcon and its close, but comforting quarters. But thinking of the ship led me to thinking about its master – his mischievous eyes, his lopsided, cocky smile. I blinked rapidly, trying in vain not to cry.

Already seated in the pilot's cabin was Darth Vader. He looked back at me. "You will be flying copilot, princess. You _do_ know how to fly, correct?"

I stiffened indignantly, but thought better of what I had been about to say and merely said coolly, "Of course, Lord Vader." Then I felt the strangest sensation through the Force. Pleasure? Or was it pride? It was gone, masked, as quickly as it had come. I tentatively took the copilot's seat. Then something occurred to me. "Sir, where are all the stormtroopers? Not that I want them around, but aren't they coming with us?"

"This ship is mine, princess, not the Empire's. No one is allowed on here except me. Even the Emperor does not come on here without my permission."

"Then why am I allowed on here?"

"As my apprentice, you are an extension of myself."

We took off. I sat in silence for what seemed an eternity, watching the colored lights on the control panel flashing in near-synchrony. Then, as before, I was unable to contain myself. I broke the silence, saying, "So where are we going?"

His answer was totally unexpected. "Someplace where the Emperor will never find you." I blinked, surprised. Wasn't taking me on in the first place _so that_ I could serve the Emperor? Something was wrong with this picture.

We sat in silence for another few minutes. Then Vader spoke up:

"I sense your confusion, princess. As my student you are entitled to ask me any question, no matter how strange. Go on."

I was taken aback, but I recovered quickly. "How am I supposed to address you now that you're my teacher?"

"You shall address me as "Master" unless I tell you otherwise."

"Well then, _Master_, why is it that you want me hidden from the Emperor? As your apprentice, aren't I in the service of the Empire?"

"No you are not. You are in _my_ service, not the Empire's. Just as this ship is mine and solely mine, so you are my apprentice, not the Emperor's."

I sensed that there was still something that he wasn't telling me, but I let it slide, with every intention of pursuing it later on. I watched silently as Darth Vader swiftly made the calculations for the hyperspace jump. He seemed so much more...calm, seated the pilot's seat. Most of the anger I usually sensed in him seemed to have evaporated. It was hard to pinpoint what the difference was, but I suspected it was because he was in a ship. I filed that piece of information away in the back of my head. It could be useful in my search to discover his true identity. I looked up to see the stars around the ship speed by to become streaks of white light. Seconds later the stars slowed down to become mere pinpoints. We did this two more times before we arrived at a system surrounding three very small, but fiery stars so close together they were almost one. Our destination turned out to be a desolate-looking little planet on the outskirts of the system. A few minutes later, we were entering the atmosphere.

We set down in the landing dock of a base nearly as desolate as the planet it was located on. Grey plastisteel for a mile in each direction, then woodlands of gnarled shrubs and stunted trees beyond that. I stepped tentatively down the entry ramp into the hangar itself. I gazed around silently, fighting to keep my fear from getting the best of me. Vader strode down the entry ramp to stand beside me.

"We have arrived."


	8. Chapter 7

**Hi everyone! Profuse and profound thanks to all of you who have reviewed – it gives me a lot of confidence, which in turn gifts you with better chapters. Anyway, I'm really sorry about the length of my chapters, but to appease those who want them longer, I will be updating _very_ soon. Just a warning: I will be changing the title and description of this story soon for the reason that it's rapidly heading down a different path. I don't own Star Wars, please review, etc etc.**

I gazed around. The base was clean, almost as if by medical standards. There was a sterility about it, not unlike that of the inside of Vader's ship. It sent a shiver up my spine. Lined up in front of us were stormtroopers and the staff of the base. Hundreds of people...All to serve the whims of the Empire, namely Vader. To be frank, it scared me. Despite my upbringing as a member of the royal house of Alderran, I had become somewhat desensitized to formality during my three years living rough with the Rebellion.

Vader, taking little or no notice of my uncomfortableness, began striding from his ship to the doors of the base. I hastened to catch up. I trailed after him as he weaved his way through the base, cleaning droids scuttling to get out of his path. The base was as desolate a place on the inside as it had looked from the outside. We entered a lift as sterile of any color or emotion as its owner. Questions arose, unbidden, but I bit my lip and stifled them.

Vader's head turned a little bit toward me, then back forward.

"Proceed with your questions, princess," his deep voice rumbled.

Stang. I _had_ to start getting better at hiding my thoughts. I recovered quickly and said, "First off, _Master_, where are we? And what is this place?"

"We are on the planet Khalis, the eighth planet in the Kha system. This Raze, my personal base. There is nothing but wasteland for miles around this place. If you value your life, you will stay within the walls."

I did my best to not to glare at him. He was anticipating everything I was going to say! A strange rumbling noise came emerged from Darth Vader's mask. A second later, I realized he was laughing at me! A chill trickled down my spine for the sound of his laughter was almost more chilling than his snarl.

The lift doors moved open. Vader strode out from the lift and down the corridor it had opened up upon. Without turning to look at me, he said, "Ask away, Princess."

My eyes narrowed, I said coolly, "Will you teach me how to shield my mind?" Even though I couldn't see his face, I felt his approval wash over me. "Certainly, Princess. That shall be our first lesson. But for now, rest and prepare yourself. Tomorrow is going to be a big day for you."

At those words, an...electricity filled the space between us. It was inexplicable. I found myself recalling all those times my Papa would tuck me into bed and say that exact same thing to me, from the night before my very first day of school all the way to the night before my first day before the Senate. The strange thing was why those words, _his own words_, had struck _him._

Then as quickly as it had come, it was gone. Vader turned away from me and said in his synthetic monotone, "This will be your room, Princess. Should you need anything, use the building's comm system." I opened the door I hadn't noticed we'd come to and entered. I felt myself relaxing despite myself. It was tasteful and comfortable, with colorful hangings on the walls and a huge window occupying one wall. I turned to Darth Vader and (even though it injured my pride) bowed from the waist. "Thank you, Master." He inclined his head in reply and swept from the room.

I closed the door and surveyed the room. It wasn't big but wasn't small either, with double doors leading out onto a balcony and two simple armchairs near them. The color choice was a beautiful blending of blue and green that reminded me achingly of the lakes up in the mountains of Alderran. After a little bit of poking around, I discovered that this wasn't the only room that was mine – I had a whole suite! A smaller bedroom with another, considerably more comfortable armchair and a nightstand, a 'fresher of my own, and to top it all off, a walk-in closet. _Princess, you sure as heck ain't considered the icon of the Rebellion here. Geez, you're an honored guest!_ And infuriating though it was to have to side with Han (even if he was just a voice in my head) I had to agree with him. I was definitely not 'Rebel scum' here. As I searched for a tunic and pants to sleep in, I mulled this new development over. _What is Vader doing?_ But try as I might, I couldn't make heads or tails of it all. I climbed into bed and cleared my mind, opening myself to the flow of the Force. Soon I succumbed to dark oblivion.

**Please review!**


	9. Chapter 8

**I think I may be turning to the Dark Side – I was (and still am!) extremely mad. And the thing was, that anger gave me power. My anger basically wrote this chapter! **

**Many thanks to all of you who have reviewed – I don't know what I would do without you! **

**A little note about this chapter: there's some mild language, and if you disapprove of it, you have obviously never gotten up at six in the morning :P **

**Please review!**

"Princess...Princess..." a tinny voice sounded next to me. Hands were shaking me, trying to get me to wake up. Any member of the Rebellion could have told that brave soul what was in store for him. Still half-asleep, I lashed out with a vicious right hook. My eyes flew open in shock and pain. I had struck solid metal. Now wide awake, I sat up to see my waker – a silver protocol droid. Groaning, I fell back onto my bed. "Please Princess, you must get up," the droid spoke. I responded by pulling a pillow over my head with my uninjured hand. "Princess, you must get up. It is Lord Vader's command." I groaned again and looked at the chrono on my bedside table. _6:00_ it read. "Rancor shit," I muttered rebelliously. I rolled off of my nice warm bed onto the cold, hard floor. Cradling my broken hand, I stumbled to the 'fresher. Fifteen minutes later, I walked out the door of my suite and followed the silver droid through the labyrinth that was the base. With every step I took, I allowed my anger to build up inside of me – my anger at my _Master_ for making me get up at such a gods-forsaken hour, my anger at myself for lashing out at the droid, and my anger that sprang naturally from the pain throbbing in my hand. I had found a medical kit under the sink in my 'fresher and I had bound my hand as best I could, but it still hurt like one of the nine Corellian hells. "This, Princess, is the training center," the otherwise-silent droid said, pushing open towering double doors. I stopped in awe. The room was _huge_ – more than 50 meters long! Soaring ceilings easily 45 meters high combined with the length of the room to give it a scale the likes of which I had never seen before. And at the center of the room stood Darth Vader, his back to me. I felt my anger surge at the sight of him. He turned, somehow sensing my presence, and looked me over. "What happened?" he inquired, inclining his head slightly at my hand. "I lashed out at your protocol droid," I said sulkily, feeling like a teenager all over again. I sensed...what was it? Amusement? In his voice when he said, "I once knew a man who was an absolute bear in the mornings. His Master used the task of waking him up as punishment to inflict on Padawans who played pranks, for this man never reacted kindly to those to tried to wake him up." I found myself smiling despite myself. "One time, (after a long round of drinking, I bet) Han made a wager with some of the guys in Rogue Squadron that he would be able to wake me up without receiving bruises." I paused, laughing at the memory. "What happened?" Darth Vader asked, amusement seeping from him. "I gave him a black eye," I said, grinning. "Later, when I saw him paying up to the guys, any pity I might have had for him evaporated."

One second we were laughing together, the next I felt the dark grip of the Force around my throat. I felt rage rising within me – Vader had waited until I was unprepared before attacking me. I shoved the dark power growing around me back at him, forcing him to release me. "You must be ready at all times, Princess," Vader said coldly. "Yes, passion and love give you power, but you must not allow them to cloud your vision. Keep them with you, for they strengthen you, but _do not_ let them allow you to be blindsided. Now run." His black-gloved hand pointed to the staircase that led to a track, a track elevated above the main floor of the training center. Gritting my teeth, I obeyed. "Twenty times around," Vader's voice echoed up to me. "Go."

_I...Hate...Him...I...Hate...Him...I...Hate...Him._ The mantra throbbed in my brain to the rhythm of my blood. Five hours, _five hours_, I had been going at it, until muscles I didn't even know I had were hurting. After running (50 laps, which Vader calmly told me was the equivalent of 5 miles), I did sit ups (200 of them) and something he called a "plank" (for 2 minutes) until my stomach muscles burned. _Then_ I did 5 pushups (despite my broken hand) after every "killer" I sprinted (10 of those). By that time I was so drained I could barely think coherently let alone walk. After finishing my last pushup, I collapsed to the floor, somehow feeling gravity's pull more strongly than usual. I closed my eyes as I felt him approach. When I heard his boots stop in front of me, I opened one eye. A bottle of water was being extended to me by a black hand. I reached for it and greedily began to guzzle it. "Slowly, slowly," his dark voice cautioned. "If you drink too fast, your stomach does not have time to respond and it will expel everything you have consumed prior to prior." I breathed in and tried to sip slowly. "Better," he said. Slowly, Darth Vader lowered himself until he was seated facing me. I felt the faintest tinglings of pride emanating from him. "To be perfectly honest, Princess, I didn't think you would last this long," he said slowly. "Maybe that's how I did it," I quietly said. "To make a point." He was silent for a long time, his mental barriers locked tight. Abruptly, he got up, tossing me a small holocron. "You will need that in a couple of minutes," he said. "Contained within are instructions for stretching. From now on, before and after every workout you do, do these stretches. They will preserve and protect your muscles, strengthening them against strains and tears." I looked at it, still not fully thinking, and nodded. "Meet me in your room in two hours. Then we will begin your training in the Force, but for now, these hours are your own." With that said, Vader turned on his heel and strode from the room.

For several minutes I just lay there, breathing deeply. Soon my muscles went from throbbing in pain to screaming in agony. I turned on the holocron and went through the actions described by the tall, blue-skinned Twi'lek instructor. And it _did_ help – some. Every muscle in my body still hurt, but now I was able at least to walk. Somehow, I hobbled out of the training center where I found the silver protocol droid waiting for me. "Where would you like to go, Mistress?" the droid asked. "I have been instructed to lead you wherever you want to go."

By now, I was at least thinking coherently, but the one thing that was occupying my mind (besides my aching body) was the emptiness occupying my stomach. "The kitchen," I said. "Take me to the kitchen."

The droid, whose name I soon learned was C4-K2, was obviously knowledgeable about the ins and outs of Raze, and I took advantage of the that, asking him question after question about the layout of the base, the kind of people within it, and the chain of command. He answered every query in the same light, metallic voice. There was no hard-and-fast rule about the layout of the base – if you wanted to travel through it, you had to learn the hard way. The majority of the people in the base were stormtroopers, but a third of the people were staff. Darth Vader had absolute authority within the castle. I was surprised to learn that he had named me as his second-in-command. Before I had time to process this, we were at the kitchen doors. When we walked in, everyone turned from what they were doing, and when they saw it was me, they all bowed low. "No, no, please – no formality," I begged, blushing. "Please don't stand on ceremony just for me!" I saw several of them exchange glances, positive or negative I knew not. A chorus of "Yes ma'am,"'s sounded from about the room. I nodded weakly, fully feeling all of my aching muscles. I tried to take a step forward, but collapsed, clutching the table for support. A stout woman with a kind face bustled over and helped me into a chair. "Oh you poor dear," she clucked. "Lord Vader's been at you, has he? That man..." she trailed off in disapproval. She spoke with a lower-class Kuati brogue, which lent a sing-songy lilt to her words. "My sister's grandson is part of his Black Squadron. Lost fifteen pounds he did, in boot camp alone! Oh, you poor dear! He's been putting you through a much worse trek – I can see it." She turned around and yelled to one of the many servants bustling about, "Lacey! Bring Mistress Leia some of that re-hydration drink we make for the boys! And make it snappy – not like normal, you tardy bird!" "As you wish, Maia!" Lacey said with a grin. It was obvious the two were on very good terms. As I listened, I could hear a lot of good-natured insults flying around the room. It was calming, in a way. I found myself smiling, actually smiling, for the first time in, geez, I didn't even know. Lacey strolled over, grinning, with a canteen. "Now drink this slowly," Maia instructed. "You'll get a big rush so don't gulp it." I nodded and took a sip. It was strange – a drink both sugary and salty at the same time. Maia and Lacey started laughing at the expression on my face. But with every sip I took, I could literally _feel_ my muscles rebuilding themselves. "I'll go get you some soup for when your body realizes just how hard it's worked," Maia chuckled. I grinned and finished the miracle drink in one last sip. Soon Maia was bustling over with a thick stew of some kind. Chunks of charbote root and bantha meat floated in a savory broth. I breathed it in, sighing in ecstasy. Maia and Lacey laughed and wandered off to other duties as I shoveled the stew down. Forty minutes, two bowls of stew, and half a loaf of bread later, I checked the chrono on the wall. _12:05_. I had less than an hour before my next lesson with Vader. I got up from my chair and bowed before the kitchen staff. "Thank you all so much. I hope to get to know all of you in the coming year," I said, truly meaning it. The staff looked rather surprised, but took it in stride, bowing back to me. With that, I left with C4-K2.

"Where would you like to go next, Mistress?" he asked.

"My room," I said, positive I would be treading the route from there to the kitchen many more times.

"Certainly, Mistress. Right this way," C4-K2 said. I kept track in my mind the sequence of directions: right, left, left, long passageway, right, staircase, right, and there it was. My room. I tried to turn the door knob before noticing the security pad on the door. I tentatively put my thumb on the pad. One of the green dots lit up. I looked into the retinal scanner. The second dot lit up. Unsure of how to proceed for the next step, I looked at the screen. A five-letter passcode was required. _Lovely_, I thought. I thought about it for a while. What would Vader have set as the passcode? It had to be something he felt strongly about that he had somehow conveyed to me. Then it came to me. _Padme_. I could have hit myself. I punched it in, and sure enough, the door swung open. I checked my chrono. I had less than half an hour before Darth Vader came. Unsure of what to do with my new-found time, I went out onto the balcony and felt the rush of the air buffet me. Amidst the roaring of the Khalis winds, I found a kind of peace. I mulled over the pieces of the riddle Vader had thrown me. But it was like putting together a puzzle with half the pieces missing, and I soon gave up in frustration. The odd whine made by the wind reminded me of the whine caused by the wind on another planet in the other corner of the galaxy. Which led me to the man who went out in the middle of a blizzard to find a friend, a man for whom I had felt the strangest of feelings, feelings which I would die rather than admit. And look where those feelings led me – trapped in a castle on a barren planet in the farthest corner of the galaxy. It could almost be the start of a fairy tale – the princess languishing in the castle, waiting for her handsome prince to come and rescue her. I snickered. Yes, I was a princess, but I was most definitely _not_ languishing, nor was my handsome prince going to come. The whole reason I was here was to rescue my handsome prince. I shook my head at the crazy path my thoughts had taken. Then I felt the dark brush of an even darker person on my mind – Darth Vader was coming. I hurried to the door and opened it. He was already waiting. He swept in, a whirl of black.

"Greetings, Princess. Let's get down to work."

I almost, _almost_, rolled my eyes at his obvious dislike of standing on ceremony, but got myself under control in time and shut the door. "Take a seat," Vader said, indicating the floor. "Legs crossed, hands on your lap, back straight." I followed his instructions and sat calmly, letting my anger lap like the tide against the corners of my mind, for sitting in such a position hurt my already-aching body. "Good..." Vader said slowly. I didn't know whether he was referring to my position or my anger, and frankly, I didn't care.

I looked up at Vader, the afternoon sun glistening off his mask, making it seem all the more hideous.

"We begin your training now, Princess," he said, his dark, metallic voice echoing through my skull. "Open your mind to the Force."

I took a deep breath in and closed my eyes. I felt the Force flowing like a hurricane around me. I rode the powerful gusts within, wrapping them around me. I sank into the eye of that hurricane, letting it seep through me, imbuing me with it.

"Good," that dark voice mused. "You have come far in such a short time. Now, open your eyes."

Slowly, I began raising my lids before he snapped, "No! Your _mind's_ eyes! Look through the Force!" I added to the hurricane my growing hatred for him and opened the eyes of my mind.

Standing before me was a man, a man tall and powerfully built. Clothed all in black, the aura of his life was a harsh, light-consuming black. A scar alongside his right eye marred his otherwise handsome features, giving him a look of unpitying harshness. Within his eyes could be seen shadows of many things - things that had been, things that were, and things that were yet to be. A small smile that did not reach his merciless eyes crossed his face as he sensed that I saw him.

"Yes, Princess, I _am_ human, though you had your doubts," he spoke, his voice echoing in the Force. It was at once a rough, unfamiliar tenor and the resounding bass I was so used to hearing. "Now reach out to me. Strengthen the bond."

I looked at the span between us. A thread of Force-light connected us.

"Master - what is this bond?" I asked tentatively.

"This is the bond of teacher and student. It is experienced by many, but most of all by those who use the Force," he said. This time, with a note of harsh command in his voice, he said, "Reach out to me through it."

Tentatively, I extended part of my mind across the span of the bond.

"No fear, girl! You are not one of the sniveling cowards that fill this galaxy - you are different. You are Sith! Now stop second-guessing yourself and _act_!" he thundered.

I felt anger flare up within me, both at him and at myself. I _was_ being a sniveling coward, but no longer. I shoved the part of my mind along the bond until it struck him with the full force of my mind. And suddenly I was awash with memories, memories that were not mine...

_I'm longing for my Mom's arms, and I haven't even left yet. Fear that I'll never see her again makes my heart hurt. She says, "Now be brave and don't look back. Don't look back." I walk to the fancy ship. I listen to Mom and don't look back..._

_I've fashioned my first lightsaber. Obi-wan checks it, stroking it. He turns to me and smiles. "You are a Jedi now," he says and hands it back to me..._

_I'm seeing _her_, and I know with a certainty beyond certainty that she is the most beautiful creature in the galaxy. But what does she think of me? I'm just a slave from Tatooine with a weapon that glows. She'll never see me as anything other than her bodyguard. But still, I hope..._

_I'm holding her, and she whispers to me, "Ani, I'm pregnant."..._

_Death...so much death...then volcanoes...two blue lightsabers...the desire to destroy my brother consuming me...anger...so much anger..._

_Then pain...so much pain...my mutilated body...my mutilated soul...three gone...mother, wife, child...nothing left but pain..._

I was thrown back by the power of the bond being severed. I lay gasping on the floor for Force-knows-how-long. I lifted my hand to my forehead. It came away damp. A sheen of sweat coated me from head to toe. I found I was shaking uncontrollably. I could not, _would not_, bring myself to consider the memories I had just witnessed - they were far too painful. Their intensity, fueled by pain, shocked me, keeping me chained in a smothering silence. The pain, both mental and physical, that kept them alive ricocheted through my skull, inducing a pounding headache. I chanced a look at my master. He looked just as he always did - imposing and imperious in his jet-black armor. I tried to gently probe his mind, but his defenses went up the second I touched him.

He rose from his chair. "We are done for today," he said slowly. He strode out the door, not sparing me a second glance. I lay there on the floor until the light shining through my window began to dim. I lay there, trembling, now fully comprehending what I had just seen.

_Darth Vader's memories_.


	10. Chapter 9

**_7,000 hits?_ *faints* **

**A thousand thanks those of you who have reviewed. I've said it before and I'll say it again – you are awesome and amazing and...and...some other synonym for 'wonderful' starting with an 'a'. **

Minutes drifted into hours. Hours expanded into days. Before I knew it, three weeks had gone by. Every day I had the joy of experiencing what it felt like to be a noodle: weak, limp, and utterly worn out. But somehow, I adjusted. Slowly but surely, my body became accustomed to the workload, both mental and physical. And having my master's Creed of Obedience drilled into me certainly helped:

_For every time you slow down, you run._

_For every time to cannot finish a lap, you run._

_For every time you are timid, you run._

_For every time you are not ready for an attack, you run._

_For every time you voice a complaint, you run._

_For every time you question me, you run._

I learned the hard way that he was serious about it: "For every time you question me" came into play more than once.

By the twenty-seventh day (and yes, I was keeping track) I had learned things a lot - about the Force, about myself, and about Darth Vader. I learned how to shield my mind (he could still break through the strongest shields I constructed), how to achieve a greater connection to the Force (he was still a mighty oak to my tiny sapling), and how to hide memories from others (he didn't say it, but I knew he was thinking of the Emperor). I also learned that what I had done that first day – viewed Vader's memories – was well-nigh impossible (courtesy of the kitchen staff, who knew everything that was said and done in the base) and was never to be discussed (from Vader himself). I still wasn't quite sure how I had done it – maybe he just wasn't ready, his shields were lowered for some reason or other, or I really was as powerful as he said. My money wasn't on the last. Whatever I had done that night was probably just a fluke – every time I probed him afterwards, his shields were immensely strong and locked solidly in place. But that didn't stop me trying. On the contrary, it made me try harder than ever. He was hiding something in the depths of his mind, and I wasn't about to let it go.

On the twenty-eighth day, I was doing my daily laps – sixty now that I was in a little better of shape – when a tall, pony-tailed man burst through the gymnasium doors.

"Uncle D!" he exclaimed, a cocky smile that screamed _CORELLIAN_ on his face. I watched him swagger over to Darth Vader, but didn't slow down: the first rule of Vader's Creed had also come into play more than enough times. Instead, I augmented my hearing with the Force – a handy trick I had taught myself in my free hours.

"Ah, Jixton. So glad you could join us," Vader said dryly. I concealed my shock that Vader was actually able to put up with people and listened closer. Vader asked quietly, "Did you deliver the…package?"

"Yep. And he received it in excellent health," the man, Jixton, responded.

The sound of Vader's synthetic rumble echoed slightly through the Force: "Good. You have never failed me, Jixton."

"An' I don't plan on doing so any time soon, Uncle D," Jixton returned. "Got any new jobs for me?"

"I'm so glad you asked, Jixton." If I hadn't known better, I would have said Vader sounded smug. He beckoned to me. "Come here, Leia, and meet your new teacher."

I ground to a halt. This cocksure, egotistical Corellian was going to be my _teacher_? Small comfort though it might have been, his expression was identical to mine. I grumbled under my breath and jogged down the ramp to the ground floor. Waiting for me was my Master, who wasn't even bothering to hide the glee in his Force aura.

"Leia, this is Wrenga Jixton. Jixton, this is my new apprentice Leia Organa." Vader handed Jixton a manila folder. "This is her daily workout. You will teach her combat – both armed and unarmed – and if I'm not back by the time you are done with that, start teaching her your…other skills." The man, Jixton, rolled his eyes, but took the folder. Vader then turned to me and handed me two holocrons, one royal blue and the other jet black. "You will study these for your training in the Force," he said. "The black one contains the first level of Sith teachings, and the blue one is a Jedi holocron." I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing, "It will teach you gymnastics. Incorporate the exercises talked about on it into your daily workout. Jix will give you time." I stood there, allowing my annoyance and complaints to wash over him through the Force. He said calmly, "Now, now, Princess – you are not allowed to voice complaints."

I replied just as calmly, "I didn't say anything." Turning to Jixton, I asked, "Did I say anything." Jixton grinned outright at my comment and said slowly, "She didn't say anything, Uncle D."

Vader replied dryly, "I'm glad to see that you two will get along. I would hate to come back and find out that you two had killed each other." He turned on his heel and strode for the door. Unable to control my tongue (hence all my infringements on his Code), I asked him, "But where are you going?"

He paused, then said, "On a mission for the Emperor." And anticipating my next question, he continued, "And I don't know when I will be back." With that, he walked out the training center's doors. They slammed together with a resounding _THUD_.

I turned back to Jixton to see him eyeing me, searching me for Force-knows-what. I stared back, unabashed. After several seconds of close, and extremely awkward inspection, he broke the silence, saying, "You wouldn't happen to be _the_ Leia Organa – the Princess of Alderran?"

"Yes. I _would_ happen to be _the_ Leia Organa," I replied stiffly. "And just who might you be?"

"Wrenga Jixton, ex-pilot and ex-convict," he said, extending his hand to me. When I just looked at it and didn't take it, he rolled his eyes. "Look, Your Highness, if I'm going to be your teacher for an undetermined span of time, we might as well start off on the right foot. I'm Wrenga Jixton, ex-pilot and ex-convict, now a personal servant of Lord Vader. I'm from Corellia, and a damn good pilot. What about you?"

Raising my eyebrows, I said, "I'm Leia Organa, crown princess of Lost Alderran. I'm a named leader of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor to the Empire. I'm number five on the Empire's Most Wanted list, and I'm here under Lord Vader's tutelage only so I can save my best friend from Jabba the Hutt." The smallest smile on my face, I finally took his hand. The first thing I noticed was that every inch of his hand was covered in calluses. _A hard worker_ I thought. _No, duh, Your Highnessness!_ my inner Han said. _Do you honestly think Vader would employ lazy scum? Look how angry he gets when _you_ slack off!_ Han had a point. Vader had zero tolerance for people who didn't do their job well – that I had also learned the hard way.

I turned my thoughts back to Jixton. A huge smirk, which I figured was his signature look, had crept across his face when I talked about being a traitor to the Empire. My eyes narrowed.

"What's so funny?" I demanded. His grin, which I thought couldn't possibly get any bigger did just that.

"Nothing, Your Highness, nothing," he said, now trying to conceal his outrageously contagious smile. "I just see why he kept you. You're quite the spitfire."

"Why thank you," I said coldly.

He gazed around the room. "Well, we might as well start," he said. He planted his feet solidly on the floor. "Alright – hit me."

I was taken aback. "Why?" I asked; Vader hadn't told me I had to follow the Creed with this Jixton, and I didn't plan to.

He rolled his eyes. "Look, Princess, if you're going to learn combat – and you _will_ learn – you have to learn how to hit properly. Now hit me – as hard as you can."

I shrugged. If he wanted to get hurt, that was his problem. I lashed out with a right hook straight to his stomach. It was like hitting solid rock. Immediately, my hand started throbbing as bad as it had the day I had first broken it. And to make matters worse, Jix was shaking his head in exasperation. "Geez, we've got a long way to go," he muttered.

I spent the next three hours slaving away under his instruction. First we worked on my stance (which I apparently had had wrong all these years). Then we set to work on my form (which was also in great need of correction). He made very clear that the only thing I had going for me was my speed and that I had a very, _very_ long way to go. But despite his gruff and cocky demeanor, he was also a very good teacher, not just telling me what to do, but showing me himself. He also threw in jokes and witty comments to help me remember all the things he was teaching me. But by the end of the morning, I was glad to be out of there.

After eating lunch and listening to the staff's gossip in the kitchen (an invaluable source of information), I took a leisurely walk to the security tower, the very hub of Raze. I knocked, then walked in. Gregorei Voskra, the head of Raze security, welcomed me in. We sat and had some of his special Coruscanti tea and talked about his grandkids. (I had learned over the years that true power lay not in brute strength but in forging connections with people, and I had been putting that theory to work since Day Two.) After some small talk and the displaying of the latest holos of his kids and their families, he got down to business.

"As lovely as it is to see you, Mistress Leia, I must ask: why are you here?" he said with the Haverling emphasis on his r's. "You are wanting something from me." He shook his finger scoldingly at me, his eyes twinkling. I smiled back, unabashed.

"I was wondering..." I began slowly, playing on his curiosity. "...if you would be able to get me a datapad – one that can access the HoloNet and informational sites and such."

He looked sadly at me. "Lord Vader gave me very strict instructions that everyone, most especially you, is not to be given private datapads. All persons wishing to access the HoloNet have to access it through the main hub," he said, gesturing to the wide expanse of the room, every inch occupied by holotransmitters

I stopped, perplexed. This was without at doubt my _master's_ attempt to prevent me from accessing something. But _why_? What was Vader hiding? "Why?" I asked, deciding to play it dumb, with the hopes of stumbling on more information.

He silently shook his head. "He gave me no answer. But by now you know – that is just Lord Vader's way. It is our job to take orders silently and to execute them well."

I nodded, my face dismal, my mind whirring. I got up and thanked Gregorei for the tea and conversation. I walked to the door, then stopped as if I had just realized something. "You know," I said casually, "Lord Vader isn't here...which makes me first in command." I gave him my most winning smile.

Gregorei laughed outright. "He also told me that if you said that, I was to disregard any requests you had made prior to it."

Now I was fuming. I politely made my excuses, then fled the room. I stormed through the corridors, contemplating the situation. Vader and I seemed to be engaged in a battle of wills – a chess game, if you like. So far, he had countered every move I had made. It was time for something a bit more subtle – something of the criminal kind. _That's my girl_ I could hear Han saying proudly. Jix had mentioned that he was an ex-convict. I smiled, feeling the shadowy outlines of a long-term strategy form within my mind.

After several hours of solidifying my plan, I went to find Jix. After about fifteen minutes of searching, I found him in the mechanics shop, under a damaged speeder. I kicked his foot. "Jix. Jix. _Jiiix,_" I said. He pulled himself out from under the speeder. When he saw it was me, he said, "What is it, Your Apprenticeness?" When he saw my smirk, his expression changed from slightly annoyed to slightly frightened. I said straight off, "Can you teach me how to hack?"

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	11. Chapter 10

**Hey everybody! I'm sorry about the wait – real life got a hold of me, chewed me up, and spat me back out. But I'm on break right now, recuperating, so expect another chapter within the week. But then again, don't set your hopes that high...**

**I should mention that the time frame right now is about four weeks after Vader has left. And I'm sorry if there are any discrepancies in this chapter - I know next to nothing about hacking. **

**I don't own Star Wars, please review, and enjoy! :)**

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><p>Today was the day. Today, I would find out what Vader was hiding. Who Padme was, what his relationship to her was, <em>everything<em>. As I strode down the halls, Jix at my side, I recalled the conversation (if you could call it that) in which I convinced him to teach me the tricks of hacking.

"_Hack? Ha! I'm sorry, Princess, I'm not the man for you – I don't know how to," Jix said just a little too innocently. I raised my eyebrows in polite disbelief. "No really, Leia, I don't," he said. _

"_Oh? Then what was my master referencing when he mentioned your "other" skills?" I countered. _

_After the briefest of pauses, he said very slowly, "I don't know what you mean, Princess."_

"_Oh really?" I said. "No 'personal servant' of Lord Vader has no extra skills whatsoever. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of a servant you really are, Wrenga Jixton. Right now I would say, based on your conversation with him and the display of your skills this morning, you are either a spy or a private assassin. Either way, you _would_ know how to hack." _

_I paused, letting the implication sink in. His eyes widened slightly at the extent of my knowledge. He gave a low whistle. "Okay, _now_ I see why Vader chose you." He shook his head in quiet wonder, and said half to himself, "Geez, you're quick." He sat up and told me to follow him to his room. I acquiesed, and once we got there, he told me the whole story: he had attended the Imperial Academy of Carida before he was court-martialed and sent to the spice mines on Kessel. He escaped and through a series of unforeseen circumstances, ended up saving Darth Vader's life. Vader agreed to spare the life of a certain species, and in return, Jix pledged himself to Vader for eternity. "...And now, I am his personal information gatherer. A spy, you might say," he concluded. _

_I was silent for a few moments, my mind whirring. "So, you _do_ know how to hack?" I said slowly, already knowing the answer, but wanting to make him say it. _

"_Yes, I do," he answered. "But I'm not going to teach you how to if it's going to undermine Lord Vader."_

"_Why not?"_

"_I'm not the most avid supporter of the Empire, but what loyalty I have left, it belongs to our dear old Uncle D. Therefore, I can't let you go selling him out or something."_

_I fixed him with the Look – politely skeptical with just enough steel behind it to make the most hardened soldier back down. "I can promise you one thing, Jix – all I am trying to find is information about a woman he mentioned to me. Nothing to undermine his rule in that, is there?"_

_He considered for a while, scrutinizing me as he did so. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he held his hand out to me, saying, "Fine. Shake on it?"_

Over the next thirty-two days during my free hours, Jix taught me almost everything he knew about hacking, from the little ins and outs to the tricks to remaining undetected.

Now the day was here – Day 33 under Jix's tutelage and Day 61 at Raze. I took a seat at the main computer console, Jix standing like a sentinel over my shoulder. The plan was for me to enter the HoloNet the normal way, then hack through the blockades that Vader had set up around certain people and events. Then Jix would walk me through the steps necessary for erasing my escapade from the databank. Jix, though he didn't say it, had become as curious about this Padme woman as I was. He had the inborn curiosity of the Corellians, and he did nothing to hinder it.

My palms were sweating. I wiped them on my pants and brought my hands up to the keyboard. I typed in Gregorei Voskra's passcode (lifted from his pocket during one of our teatimes), watched as it unlocked, then opened up the HoloNet. I typed the keywords, "Padme Senator" into the search engine. Immediately, blockades and firewalls sprang up. I took a deep breath in, pulled the Force through me, and approached the first firewall. I soon surprised myself. If I hadn't been raised as a royal (an unwilling one, but a royal nonetheless), I could have done hacking for a living. Dodging firewalls, sliding beneath barriers of code - I could hear Han snickering. _The Princess, Miss High-and-Mighty herself, _hacking_! I knew you had it in you!_ he said, finishing with his trademark lopsided grin and a wink.

Soon I was in the clear. All barriers were behind me, and all that I had been seeking right at my fingertips. I selected the first site, a proffessional-looking galactic encyclopedia. Quickly scanning the whole page, I made a copy of it for later perusal and put that on the untraceable flashdrive Jix had smuggled into Raze for me. I went through this process nine more times, each time finding less and less new information. Eventually, I started getting into the tabloid and Coruscant gossip pages. Here there was less real information and more speculation, but I did find several nuggets that would be worth looking into. Soon, I had all that I had been looking for and more. I slid out of my seat, pulling the flashdrive out as I went. Jix settled into the chair and began the process of erasing my "visit". I watched in awe as his fingers flew across the keyboard, cutting out certain pieces of code, replacing others with "false fronts" as it were, and twisting still more code into different forms. Before I knew it, every trace of my excursion into Darth Vader's databank had been erased. I thanked Jix as I walked from the room, and he gave me a wink. We had agreed together that the rest of the day would be all mine - no workouts, no training, nothing. I jogged through the twising hallways of Raze to my rooms. As soon as I was in, I locked the door and escaped into my bedroom, locking that door as well. I crawled under the bed and lifted one of the floor panels up to reveal a small hole. Within, I had stored all the contraband that Jix had gotten me in preparation for this little venture; one of the pieces of said contraband was a small, hand-held computer. Plugging the flashdrive into it, I settled back on my bed to read about Padme the Senator, Vader's most valued secret.

Some hours later, after having sifted through all the data I had found, I was tired and my eyes were aching, but I was no longer in the dark. I knew who Padme was, or more acurately, who she had been. Her full name was Padme Naberrie, and she had been born on Naboo some fourty-nine years ago. She was elected as Queen of Naboo at the age of fourteen and took the name Amidala. (I recalled sitting bolt upright at this point - Queen Amidala of Naboo was one of my greatest heros!) Not only did she successfully defend her people against the invasion of the Trade Federation, she also changed the constitution to limit the monarch's power, all in the span of eight years. And _then_, she became the Senator representing Naboo upon the request of the Queen at the time. Due to her outspokenness and sheer stubbornness (I remembered grinning outright at this point), an assassination attempt was made during her third year in office because an unknown party wanted her out of the way. A Jedi was assigned to protect her and escort her back to Naboo. Very few of the sources said who exactly that Jedi had been, but one disgustingly gossipy tabloid made a small mention of her "association" with Anakin Skywalker. (I remembered my mind going completely blank - my two greatest heros, _connected_? A rumored connection, but a connection nevertheless.) From the article's choice of words and the recurrence of the theme in my other tabloid sources, I gathered that a connection (no one really knew _what_) between the two had been common knowledge at the time. And of course, tabloids being tabloids, the aforesaid connection was thought to be romantic. (I rolled my eyes here - as Crown Princess of Alderran, I myself had been subjected numerous times to the scrutiny of the galactic rumormongerers. I remembered feeling a great rush of sympathy for Padme at this point.) Anyways, the unknown Jedi brought her home to Naboo, and _somehow_ she ended up on Geonosis and became involved in one of the biggest battles in recent galactic history. In the three years that followed, nothing major happened besides of course, the Clone Wars, the most terrible civil war since the foundation of the Republic. Nothing major. But about four months before the ascension of the Emperor, the tabloid sources started reviving themselves once again. With the use of wardrobe trickery, she was able to keep it concealed for a while, but it became increasingly obvious that Padme Amidala was pregnant. No one knew who the father was, though the tabloids made sure to put in their two credits. Then, on Empire Day, she abruptly left her apartment and flew off. No one knew why, no one knew where - all that was known was that later that day, she turned up dead in the Polis Massa hospital. All the autopsy reports showed that her larynx had been crushed, but there were no bruises on her throat. The baby had died with her. She was buried on Naboo, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Theed to honor her. Today, her grave never lacked for flowers - from friends, from family, and from anonymous sources.

I sat up, pondering this new information. For one moment - one shining moment - I had thought that this woman, Padme Amidala, was my mother. But, no: _The baby died with her._ It was a blow. I didn't really understand it - it had felt right, ringing with truth in the Force, that she was my mother. And logically, it all fit: I was born on Empire Day, and she died on Empire Day. And then there was our uncanny resemblence. Several of the articles had carried holos of her, as Queen and as a Senator. We were both short, we both had long chocolate-brown hair, and we both had dark hazel eyes. It all fit! But then again... She had a very fine-boned face – smooth, oval-shaped, yet with delicate features. If you didn't see her eyes, you would think she would break if you touched her. I, on the other hand, had a much longer and narrower face. I was all angles – long, narrow nose, sharp cheekbones, and a rather pointed chin. Besides our height (short), hair color (chocolate brown), and eye color (hazel) – all of which were incredibly common for human females throughout the galaxy – we didn't look that much alike. But it still felt like there was something, something that we both shared, something unique. Was it how we carried ourselves? Frustrated, I soon gave up trying to relate the two of us. The more I thought about it, the more I started to think just how much Luke looked like her. Could _he_ be related to her? If the connection between Padme Amidala and Anakin Skywalker, his _father_, had been romantic, she could very well have been his mother. But then, there was still that little detail: _the baby died with her. _Still, none of this explained Vader's intense memory of her. For when I saw the first holo of her - her Senate ID holo - the Force brought up in my mind, unbidden, a memory I had wrenched from Vader's psyche...

_I'm seeing _her_, and I know with a certainty beyond certainty that she is the most beautiful creature in the galaxy... _

I knew now that the _she_ in that memory was Padme Amidala. Vader had loved. He had deeply and truly _loved_. What was going on? I felt like I had been given a mystery novel with the middle and half of the ending missing. There was something, _something_, hovering on the outskirts of my mind that would bring this whole mess into order. But that _something_ kept evading me; I couldn't latch onto it, no matter how hard I strained to grab it. Now I was mad - all this work, all this anxiety, and for what? More questions. But this defeat didn't quench the fire of my curiosity: on the contrary, it only heaped the flames higher. I _was_ going to find out what Vader was hiding and what that had to do with _me_ if it killed me.

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	12. Chapter 11

**Now, I'm going to do some shameless advertising here, but don't feel obliged to read it (Translation: read it or I'll hunt you down...) This story has been so spoiled – _55 reviews_! (Thank you SO much, by the way!) However, my oneshot _Sigh No More_ has only gotten one :'( Have mercy on the little guy! (If you need a little extra inducement, it's Leia/Han) ;) **

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><p>The next day, I went down to the training center only to find that Jix had been busy: an obstacle course had been set up. I went through my stretching routine, then did a few laps to warm up. By the time I had run the training center's equivalent of a mile, Jix had finally decided to show up. Strolling in late as usual, he clutched a cup of caf and a small, battery-powered caf maker. I rolled my eyes. For a professional assassin, he sure had a weakness when it came to caf and the early morning. He gazed blearily up at me.<p>

"Stop smiling," he ordered. "It's not right to be happy at this hour." I stifled my grin and jogged on down to him. He handed me a piece of paper with a diagram of something polygonal on it and told me to memorize it. I looked over it. Ten seconds later, he snatched it out of my hand. I looked up at him, half confused and half infuriated.

"What was that you said about memorizing it?" I asked, irritated. "I can't exactly memorize it if it's in your hand!"

"Ah, now that isn't the point, Leia dear," he said, rubbing his eyes.

"Well then, what is?" I said, somewhat belligerently.

"You'll see," he responded cryptically. It annoyed me no end how he could still be mysterious and omniscient even when he was half-asleep. "Now go try the maze."

He walked up the ramp to the running track while I strode to the entrance of the obstacle course. He took a big gulp of caf then said, "Proceed, dearie."

I walked down the first passageway, Force senses tingling. Suddenly, as my foot was going down, I knew what was going to happen before it did: my foot touched the floor, and a wave of pressure knocked me from my feet.

"Tch, tch tch," Jix could be heard scolding me like a big mother hen. "Sloppy, Leia, sloppy. If that was a real situation, you'd be dead now. Go again."

I went back to the beginning of the maze and walked through again, this time making sure to avoid the place I stepped the first time. After being chastised by Jix, I had augmented my hearing with the Force; this time, I heard the faint buzz of a sonic plate emanating from the spot. Soon, I reached a fork in the passageway – I could keep going straight, turn right, or turn left. I closed my eyes and listened. Faintly, I could hear a thumpthumpthumpthmpthump coming from the left fork. I wondered where I had heard that sound before; a split second too late, I realized what it was – the forced march of stormtroopers. By then, red laser beams were focused on me, a recording of the sound of blaster bolts sounding around me. I swore. Jix's voice sounded from above me: "Again."

Three hours later, after having been blown up twice, shot down three times, suffocated in a poison gas release four times, tripping six different kinds of alarms, falling down two different trap doors, and getting shot by poison darts, I finally had the layout of the maze.

"You know..." Jix's smug voice floated down to me. "... if you had memorized the map when I had given it to you, you wouldn't be quite so dead right now." I sneered up at him, then walked into the maze, feeling the Dark Side rippling through me. This time, I successfully avoided the sonic plates and the first two contingents of stormtroopers before coming to the corridor laced with lasers. I ducked, strained, backflipped, rolled, and crawled, somehow getting around the lasers, helped along by the Force and my recently discovered flexibility. I got down the next three corridors without problems, but when I got to the poison gas field, I ran into trouble. I knew from the previous three times that the gas was "detonated" by one of two things: pressure or heat sensors. I had thirty seconds to defuse it before it registered a biological presence and expelled the gas. With the clock ticking, I removed the plate. Over my time at Raze, I had been able to indulge my secret love of machines; Jix had encouraged it, finding in me a kindred spirit. A week prior to this, he had shown me how to defuse different kinds of bombs. I delved into the Force and with its help, found the right wire. I followed the wire back to the power source, then opened that casing. Quickly, I made some alterations to the source, essentially changing it from "Automatic" to "Off", pulled the wire out, then changed the setting back to "Automatic". I checked the timer that Jix had so thoughtfully put within the aerosol bomb. _15 seconds _it read. My fastest time yet. Not taking time to savor my victory, I moved quickly down the corridor, then dropped and rolled to avoid the poison darts. Now all I had between me and the goal was a contingent of stormtroopers and a facsimile of the most intricate security system known to the galaxy. The stormtroopers were actually just excellent holoprojections, but stormtroopers nonetheless – slow, dumb, and limited in their arsenal of skills. I ducked, kicked, and punched, taking them out one by one. When they were all lying on the floor, I sprinted across the wide room toward the glass case that stood in the very center of the maze, senses straining for the sound of any dangers. I heard the buzz of multiple sonic plates. They weren't all in the same spot – their placing, it seemed, was completely random. I pulled the Force through me, fueling it with the pain of my aching body, then vaulted into the air. Landing on one hand, I pushed off, twisting in midair so that I landed lightly on one foot. Pirouetting, I used the force of the spin to launch again. I somersaulted, cartwheeled, and walked on my hands. Pushing with all the strength I had left, I shot myself into the air, staying up far longer than I could have if the Force wasn't guiding me. While flying through the air, I arched my back and landed lightly on the balls of my feet. I opened my eyes; sometime during my gymnastics exhibition, I had closed them, truly allowing the Force to guide me. Now I was at the case. I did a quick scan of it, looking for an wires or sensory pads. I found a wire off the bottom and a sensory pad at the corner of the glass. Prising the front off of the metal part of the case, I did a quick inner check. No explosives or other dangerous paraphernalia on display within, but an interesting array of colorful wires and a switchboard as bright as Coruscant at nighttime were to be seen. By now I was so immersed in the Force that I didn't even think about what I was doing – I grabbed a nondescript wire hidden behind the others and gently worked it from its power source. Then I flipped two switches up and one down. The silence around me thundered in my ears. Ever so slowly, I pulled the glass off its metal pedestal. I had been so wrapped up in getting the alarms turned off that I hadn't even looked to see what they were protecting. A small, rectangular box rested on the metal pedestal. I reached out to take it, then stopped short. I wouldn't have put it past Jixton to leave an alarm under the box that would go off if the box was lifted up. I searched for wires but came up empty. However, I _did_ heard the hum of a sonic pressure pad. I gritted my teeth. Breathing in the Force as if it were air, I closed my eyes and bent down. Not seeing but _knowing_ what I was doing, I somehow got the switchboard off of the metal pedestal and reached in to find another switchboard. All of the lights were glowing a steady green. This time, I didn't even bother flipping the switches. The Force flowed through me, helping me to see the inner system of the machine. I sent the Force through it, hoping to change it; I listened. Nothing was happening. Anger bubbled up inside me; I took hold of that and _shoved_ it through the machine. _Clickclickclickclick_ was the sound of the nanogears within changing. Now all the lights glowed a bright, steady ruby. Now I lifted off the glass without any fear. The box I picked up and lifted triumphantly above my head, knowing Jix was watching.

The sound of his applause echoed through the whole training center. "Excellent job, Leia!" he exclaimed. "I've turned off the systems, so you can just walk out." I nodded and walked back out through the maze. With every step I took, my body began to realize just how much it was hurting and started to make complaints to me. Limping a little (something had happened to my right ankle after I was blown up the second time), I finally made it out the entrance to the maze. There, I collapsed on the floor; with a herculean effort, I began my stretching exercises. Pulling my right knee up to my chest, I looked up to see Jix standing above me.

"Leia, I'm ashamed of you," he said jokingly. "You didn't even look to see what was in the box!"

"I'll be able to look inside the box after I'm sure that I won't die of muscle cramps," I said back, through gritted teeth.

He gave me his incorrigibly Corellian smile. "Vader will be _most_ impressed," he said, much more serious now. "I'm really proud of you, Leia. You've come far." With that, he extended his hand to me and helped me to stand.

As we walked slowly to the kitchens, he said just a little too calmly, "Vader's going to want to see you in action."

I ground to a halt, the implications of Jix's words sinking in. "I'm going to have to do it _again_?" I said, shocked disbelief rolling off of me.

"Oh not _this_ maze," he said cheerily. "I'm sure Uncle D is going to want to put his own touches to it."

I groaned quietly. If this maze was Jix's creation, I shuddered to think of what Vader could do. "Just bury me now," I mumbled.

Now Jix's smirk _really_ came out. "Oh, I'm sure he won't kill you, dearie – he wants you alive."

"Oh joy..."

A couple hours later, after we had both inhaled our delicious lunches, we went to Jix's room. There, he taught me how to sweep for bugs (the electronic kind). After I had found the five different ones he had planted, he brought up the subject of Padme. Quietly, I told him all that I knew as well as my suspicions and theories. When I showed him the Senate Holo of her, he paused, the shadow of something passing across his face.

"What?" I demanded. "What is it?"

He slowly shook his head, but not refusing – more in a confused manner. "I've seen that woman somewhere before. But I can't remember when or where, and it's worrying me."

Jix not remembering something? That was indeed worrying. I opened my mouth to say something when his abnormally quiet voice interrupted me.

"You know, Leia, I've had a theory for a while now – from before I met you. I think it could enlighten us on some of these points," he said, brow furrowed in thought. "It's just a theory, but from what I've seen and what I've heard, I think it has some element of truth in it."

I leaned forward eagerly. "What is it?"

"When you were talking about the "connection" between Anakin Skywalker and this Padme lady, the name "Anakin Skywalker" struck me and brought to mind this old theory: I think Vader's got a personal vendetta against that guy. I heard that when Vader found out the name of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, all the windows in the Imperial palace burst. I heard that he was so mad that you could _feel_ his anger rippling around him. Then, people have told me, he sent out all his agents, and I mean _all,_ to find this Skywalker kid. He said explicitly that this he was to be returned to him _alive_. I think," (Here his voice dropped to below a whisper), "I think that he wanted to torture the kid himself; you know, put him through as much pain as possible, take his anger against the father out on the son."

I shuddered. That certainly sounded like Vader. In our few quiet hours together from a millennium ago when I was still on the run with the Rebellion, Luke had told me that his father had been killed by Vader. I recalled how Luke looked when he, Chewbacca, and Lando came to rescue me on Cloud City - beaten, bloody, bruised and missing one hand. All Vader's work. This vendetta idea certainly fit the circumstances.

_ Alright, hypothetical situation_, I thought to myself. _Let's say that Padme Amidala _was_ my mother and that the connection between her and Anakin Skywalker _was_ romantic. We know that Vader loved her - maybe there was a love triangle between the three of them? _Inwardly I winced - that sounded like a plot line straight out of a sappy romance novel. _But let's just say! _my inner me said rather insistently._ Let's just say that Padme chose Anakin; this drove Vader irrevocably against Anakin Skywalker. That would explain the fact that Vader killed him and why he beat Luke up so badly, if Luke's parents _are_ Padme Amidala and Anakin Skywalker._ I paused. Something new had occurred to me – if Padme was my mother and Anakin was Luke's father, and the two _were_ romantically involved, that would make Luke and I ... siblings. The thought was a strange one._ What this all doesn't explain is why Vader let Luke live_, I said to myself. _ Now back up. If I _am_ a Skywalker and if Vader suspects that __I am one, why has he kept me alive?_

It looked like another hacking session was in order.

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><p><strong>Please review! <strong>

**rosesforever294, you are not forgotten – Leia is about 22 right now. I know her birthday is the same day as Empire Day, but I don't know the exact date.**


	13. Chapter 12

**Hey everybody! A little warning about this chapter: I'm rating it T because Leia has a flashback to when our good ole pal DV tortured her on the Death Star. Feast your eyes on the fearsome things that leak from the corners of the author's dark and occasionally psychopathic mind. Read at your own risk. **

**I will not be saying this again so listen up closely: I do not own Star Wars. Enjoy! :)**

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><p>Two days later, Jix gave my unarmed combat skills a "pass", which, coming from a private assassin, was an extremely high compliment. That same morning, he began teaching me armed combat, beginning with staffs. He told me that learning to fight with a plain wooden staff would open up a whole realm of weaponry later on. As it had been under his unarmed combat tutelage, I went along with him and took the hits (of which there were many). That day, however (Day 36 under Jix and Day 63 at Raze), was the day when things began to change (not that they had changed that much sixty-four days ago on Cloud City).<p>

Jix and I were going through a blocking pattern in the training center when the door burst open and Darth Vader swept in. I would have said he _rushed_, but Lord Vader did not rush. A throbbing knot of emotions surrounded him, all of them obscured by each other. The only thing I could pick up was a franticness. _A franticness to do _what_?_ I wondered. Jix and I stopped what we were doing and made our bows, Jix's perfunctory and mine much deeper; the laws of etiquette that had been engraved into me as a child dictated such of an apprentice before her master. I concealed my pounding hatred of this man behind the strongest shields I could construct and watched black boots approaching until they were right before me. A hand in black leather gripped my chin firmly but not painfully and lifted it soon as I made eye contact (if one could do that with a being who wore a mask), the rumble of emotions surrounding him erupted into a roar. I watched and waited as he stood, frozen, his hand still gripping my chin. After what seemed an eternity in that position and being the impatient person that I was, I reached out to him through the Force, asking him what in Force's name he was doing (in politer terms, of course). That alone seemed to jolt him out of his reverie. He quickly let go of my chin and backed away ever so slightly. He seemed to pull himself together – straightening unconsciously and erecting shields of extra strength around his mind.

"How goes her training, Jixton?" he asked in his usual bass rumble.

"Very well, Uncle D," Jix said with his contagious grin. "We've covered unarmed combat and a couple of days ago, started staff fighting. I've been teaching her my...skills, and she knows how to penetrate a facility she knows nothing about without detection. Ah, you shoulda seen her, Uncle D! It was a thing of beauty watching her take apart all those bombs." I looked up at Vader, pride at Jix's praise seeping from me. A ripple of emotion went out from Vader, but he clamped down on it before I could sense what it was.

He turned to me. "And how goes your training in the Force?"

I said slowly, "It's going well..."

Vader sensed my hesitation and pounced on it. "What is it?" he said sharply.

"I haven't finished either holocron yet," I said quietly.

There was a pause. Then I heard a sound I had never heard before – a rumble of some kind. If I hadn't had the Force to convey Vader's emotions to me, I would never have known that he was laughing. Darth Vader was _laughing_. For some reason, that sparked something fierce within me.

"What's so funny?" I demanded, feeling the Dark Side's prickle within my skull.

My master got himself under control, still allowing his amusement to radiate through the Force, and said, "I did not expect you to finish either of them in this span of time. The Jedi one alone would take you three months to finish." He paused, sensing something coming from me. "You've been focusing on that one, haven't you?" I looked up at him, unrepentant. He looked back at me, silent. Wait, was he _rolling his eyes_ at me? The perception was gone as quickly as it had come. "We will continue your lessons in the Force tonight, Leia," he said. I nodded, silently acquiescing. He gestured to Jix. "Show me what you've taught her."

For the next two hours, I managed to defend myself against Jix seven out of every ten times which was a huge improvement on five weeks ago when I couldn't block a single punch. The whole time, Vader stood on the sidelines watching silently. When Jix and I mutually decided to take a break, he wandered over to the disassembled maze lying in the corner. While Jix and I gulped some water, he began piecing it together.

"What is this thing, Jixton?" he called out.

"It's a maze, Uncle D," Jix responded. "That's what I tested Leia on. It's a standard "secure facility" - I had her break into it."

Through the Force, I could tell Vader's interest was piqued. "Why has it been taken apart?" he asked.

"I thought you would want to have it erected to your own specifications – that you would want to test her on something of your own making."

"You never fail me, Jixton." My master stood over it for a while, thinking. "Take her somewhere else for the remainder of the morning – maybe the mechanics' wing. I want to see what she can do with the speederbikes there." I think Vader felt my internal outburst of joy because he turned and looked back at me. I don't know what he was thinking: his shields were locked tighter than ever. Jix, not being Force-sensitive, didn't notice; he shrugged and guided me out the doors of the training center.

Jix had to almost restrain me on our way to the mechanics' wing I was so excited.

"Speederbikes a passion of yours then?" he asked me jokingly.

"Ever since I was three and my father took me for a ride with him," I responded with a smile. "As I got older, my father and aunts tried to distance me more and more from them, but I kept fighting back." I paused, remembering. "I used to sneak out to the shed when I was supposed to be in my propriety class; Aunt Cely used to get so mad..."

Jix did not look at all surprised.

Two hours later, Jix had to almost drag me away, I was so engrossed in my task. I had found an old 22-B Nightfalcon in desperate need of repair. When I first saw it, hidden beneath mounds of junk, I cleared it off and stroked it. I felt its former power rippling through the Force as my fingers made contact with it. I started work on it almost immediately. Now we were walking to the kitchen for a belated lunch. I felt like a little kid again. Suddenly that dark voice was within my mind, not bothering to contain his amusement. My glee died away, to be replaced with anger. I shoved him out of my mind and set up the strongest shields possible. For the next two hours, I tried my best to enjoy my lunch and forget him, but it was impossible. He was well and truly entrenched in my thoughts. Soon though, the time for my lesson with Vader came and I was forced to make my excuses and sprint to my room.

I rushed into my room at top speed. Once all my locks were undone and I was in, I closed my door and leaned against it, catching my breath.

"You are late, Leia," the dark voice rumbled from across the room. He wasn't angry though – he was more...amused. Over his five-week absence, I had forgotten just how much of an enigma he was. It put me on edge. Now that he was back, I could no longer speak my mind because, unlike with Jix, I had no clue how he would respond. I would have to tread very carefully.

"Have a seat," Vader said. For the first time, he indicated a chair rather than the floor. He remained standing. I sat down slowly. He paced a little before saying, "Before we begin, I have something to ask you." I must have let my worry that my 'excursion' would be discovered leak out into the Force because he whipped around to face me. "And you have something to tell me," he said quietly and forbiddingly.

I gazed up at him, burying my secret beneath my anger against the Empire. He gazed at me, considering me. Finally, he said grudgingly, "I should not have taught you to shield your mind so early. Now I cannot read you." I almost grinned. That was the highest praise, albeit grudging, that he had ever given me. "Now, Leia, answer me truthfully: who were your parents?" he resumed.

I answered without hesitation. "Bail and Breha Organa."

"But that is not the full truth, child, and you know it," he answered calmly.

I stopped short. Had he read me there, or did he know something? I answered sharply, "They raised me. They nurtured me. They loved me. They _were_ my parents!"

With every word I uttered, a thin veil of sadness settled over him. He replied in a bitterly wry tone, "Let me rephrase my question then: who were your _biological_ parents?"

Here I paused. Should I tell him what I knew or not? Something inexplicable called for me to trust him, but my hatred was too deeply-rooted to allow anything positive to form in my heart for him. I answered, more calmly than I felt, "I don't know."

"Another half-truth, Leia," he said, the Force around him abuzz with his slowly building anger. "You don't _know_, but you have a theory. And pray, enlighten me on said theory."

This time, I made no effort to conceal my emotions – I glared at him, my mind whirring. How was I going to turn the tables on him? Then I got it. He was going to find out that I knew about Padme anyway, so why not work it to my advantage? _Place your chips, sweetheart. Go all in and bluff your way out,_ I could hear Han the sabacc player saying to me. It was a gamble alright, and I was going to have to take it. I looked up at him with the bland, half-smile sabacc face that not even Han could see through. "What happened to Anakin Skywalker?" I asked lightly.

Seemingly, his armor prevented him from flinching, but the Force carried the sensation to me, nonetheless. He stayed silent for some time, then, almost to himself, he murmured, "I don't know."

I stared at him, incredulous. "Luke says that you killed him, and now you're saying you _don't know_?"

He bristled. "Leia, I _do not know_. Part of me says that he died in the Jedi Purges and the other part says that he is alive and well, actively resisting the Emperor." He paused, about to say something, then seemed to come to himself. "Ah, I see what you are doing, Princess. Very good," he murmured, his anger like a balloon almost at bursting point. "Now that you have so successfully detoured me, shall we go back to the original question. _Who are your parents?_" He had been slowly advancing on me, so that now we were almost nose-to-nose.

Suddenly, my body stiffened. I began shivering uncontrollably, as a memory arose, unbidden, to my mind...

_Every inch of my body is in searing, mind-rending pain. Oblivion, blessed oblivion, is not forthcoming. I'm shaking uncontrollably, straining against the ties that bind me. _HE_ stands over me. Fear, as terrible as the drug he has pumped into me, eats away at me from within, corrosive as acid. "Now, Princess," he says coldly, "you _will_ tell me the location of the Rebel base_._" It takes all the willpower I have to lift my chin and shake my head once. The very air around him becomes colder. He gestures to the machine floating behind him. It advances on me, gleaming hypodermic aimed and glistening with some new terror. I'm straining, bucking, trying as hard as I can to _get away_, but all my strength has been sapped by his previous drugs. The needle pierces my upper left arm. Suddenly, I'm screaming as I have never screamed before. The entire room around me has erupted into flames. Quickly, I feel it begin to burn me, scorch me, devour me. Death's messenger, black-garbed and covered with a hideous mask, advances on me. He places his burning-hot hand upon my forehead. "Tell me the location of the Rebel base, Princess. Now!" he roars. Now he is in my mind, rending, tearing me apart, searching for his information. I make him fight for it, every inch costing him dearly. A war of galactic proportions is taking place between him and I. Then I'm pulled out of my mind and set down in the middle of the jail cell. My head hangs because I have no strength to lift it. Someone grabs my hair, forcing my head up. It's him. I muster all the courage, all the strength I have or will ever have and spit on his mask. He straightens, letting my head drop, then gestures to the droid. "Again." _Again_...Again..._Again._...Again..._Again_...Again..._The black shroud of merciful Death envelops me, and I know no more.

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><p><strong>Please review!<strong>


	14. Chapter 13

**This chapter has been a long time in coming, I admit it, but I hope it will satisfy for the time being. **

**Just a quick warning: after this chapter, the story is going to pick up a lot, which (for me) means more time between updates. Apologies in advance.**

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><p><em>Warmth...the <em>rightness_...surrounded...encircled by my mother's arms...another is there too...the other me...together a whole...mother turns me to her...one glimpse of her...sadness...she's so sad...but she loves me...clinging to me is keeping her clinging to life...then I'm ripped away...cold...so cold...notwhole...I reach for the other me...straining for him...but we're slowly separated...notwhole...a shadow falls over me...a horrible figure looming above me... "And now, Princess, we will discuss the location of the Rebel base..." ...Alderran...oh, Alderran... "Dantooine...They're on Dantooine..." I whisper, broken...the emerald light...Alderran shattering like a piece of fine china...shadows encircling me...a garish orange glowing beneath me...he is slowly descending...his eyes never leave mine...a rush of steam...it almost glows_...My eyes slowly fluttered open. Sunlight streamed over my face through white-curtained windows. Squinting, I looked around. I was in a strange room, lying on a strange bed. Slowly, I turned my head to the left. A stranger sat in an armchair, quietly reading. I opened my mouth to ask where I was, but nothing came out. I strained to sit up, but fell back with a groan. The stranger looked up. When our eyes met, surprise burst forth from him into the Force. I opened my mouth to ask where I was, but again, nothing came out. He grabbed something out of my sight; it was a cup with a straw coming from it. He brought the straw to my lips, and I drank with relief. After my thirst had been quenched, I was able to stammer out, "Whuh...Whe...Where am I? Wh-who are you?"

The doctor, for that was who I was sure he was, replied quietly, "You're in the medbay. My name is Doctor Zeller." He was young – he couldn't have been more than thirty – but I could see a few gray hairs already coming out in his dark blond hair.

"H-h-how long have I been out?" I asked, a little scared to hear the answer.

He paused. I repeated the question again, this time with more force. He sighed, giving in. "You have been out for a little more than five weeks – thirty-seven days to be exact."

I stared up at the ceiling, stunned. _Five weeks_? I quickly did the math. If it had been Day 63 when I...blacked out, that would make today...Day 100. I swore under my breath, then turned back to Doctor Zeller. "What happened to me?"

He responded quietly, "What do you remember?"

I thought back. "I remember Vader standing over me and demanding something, but...but I'm not sure whether it was a hallucination or not. I'm not sure if I was just reliving...reliving a...a memory or if it actually happened. What happened to me?"

Doctor Zeller sat back. He took his time, taking off his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt, and inspecting them before he answered me. "It happens, sometimes, that when a person has undergone physical or psychological trauma, something will happen - a trigger or such will appear - and suddenly, they're back, reliving that trauma. Their mind is so overcome by this memory that it just shuts everything down. Total blackout. I am thinking that is what happened to you. Am I right?" I nodded, tears rolling down my face. I was powerless to stop them, as powerless as I had been that day...that terrible day. "Do you know what the trigger was? If we know, we can try to prevent this from happening again," he said. I could sense through the Force that he truly wanted to help me.

"Vader," I whispered, my voice hoarse from disuse. "It was Vader."

He looked at me quietly and sadly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I thought about it, then said softly, "Not yet. Not for a while."

He nodded, a kind half-smile on his lips. "Do you think you can see Lord Vader? He has been very worried." I cast my mind out. Almost immediately, I touched on his presence. He stood, waiting, outside the door. When he felt the brush of my mind on his, such a rush of joy and relief filled him that touching him felt like touching a supernova. He reached for me, but I pulled back before he could touch me. I looked at the doctor and slowly shook my head. "Not today, I murmured. "Not today."

The doctors kept me in the medbay for the next week. Most days, I couldn't bring myself to do anything but lie on my back, trying to keep myself from going back to those memories. I had kept them locked away so carefully for so long it hurt that much more when I _did_ relive them. I had done a good job avoiding all those things that could recall them - _triggers_ the doctor had called them. Needles had always been big ones. But somehow in these nine - no, _fourteen_ - weeks, I hadn't stopped to consider _him_. I felt myself beginning to tremble just at the thought of him. Whatever had happened that day had called forth my utter fear of him. Hatred, I realized now, had always been my way of concealing the fear. Now my hatred was shattered and my fear blown out of proportion.

The doctors were all incredibly kind to me, providing tender care but not letting their pity show. But whenever I cast my mind out, _he_ was there, prowling on the outskirts. He never forced his mind at me - he just waited. Whenever he sensed me, his presence in the Force almost...lit up. He would always silently invite me in, but I always pulled back. I refused to look back every time I pushed him away. Acceptance and another, stranger, emotion formed the cloud around him. I looked back once and saw what that stranger emotion was. Sorrow. I shut him out even more firmly after that. I had no desire to connect with him in any way even though I knew I would have to eventually, being his apprentice and all.

On the eighth day after I woke up (Day 108), I was released from the medbay (after a great deal of begging and some devious concealing of certain facts on my part, I might add). I kept my pride and walked to my room without assistance (despite the fact that I had to stop and rest every fifty yards). After a long and hard slog, I was back in my rooms. Slowly, I turned the armchair in my bedroom so that it faced out the window, then collapsed into it and began contemplating my next move. How was I going to face Vader after...after what happened? Immediately, I scoffed at myself. It wasn't a question of how _I_ was to face Vader – it was a question of how Vader was to face _me_. A new thought suddenly occurred to me: I could use this to my advantage. If I played my cards right, I could learn what I needed regarding Anakin Skywalker. I looked at my bedside chrono. _2:00_. It would be another hour before Vader came for our Force lesson. (Jix had visited me in the medbay the day before and had told me that I wouldn't start physical training again until I was fully recovered; my lessons in the Force would continue as usual). I spent my hour resting and attempting to quiet my troubled heart.

Promptly at 2:00, my Master let himself in. I walked out of my bedroom to him slowly, so as to control and conceal my weakness. When he saw me, he stopped short. That cloud of emotions surrounding him built up into a thunderhead. He pulled himself out of his trance when he saw me lean against the door frame for support. Wordlessly, he helped me to my seat, lowering me gently into the cushioned seat. As I recovered, he lowered his huge, armor-clad frame into the much more austere wooden chair that I usually inhabited. Once my breathing had returned to normal, he straightened and made a sound that could only be the clearing of his throat, made abnormal by his vocoder.

"Leia..." he said rather hesitantly. He stopped, seeming to collect himself, then went on: "What is your full name?"

I hadn't realized how tense I had become until I began relaxing. "My full name is Leia Amidala Organa," I said, a note of pride sneaking into my voice.

"Amidala?"

"Yes, Amidala," I answered stiffly.

"And I suppose Organa told you stories about her?"

"Yes, they were good friends."

At this, Vader got up and began to pace. "Do you know what your name means?" he asked.

"Which one?"

"Your first name - Leia."

I paused, then asked, "Why? Do you know?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well, what does it mean?" I said, somewhat belligerently.

"In Huttese, it means Fire-Child." I filed away this little tidbit with all my other spare parts of information: Darth Vader knew Huttese. "A...friend of mine told me that it also means Little Angel." He looked at me, some unknown emotion leaking from him to me. "What have you heard?"

I counted to ten before speaking, trying to keep myself under control. "In Alderranian, it means 'homeless'," I said.

Vader stopped short. My Force senses had grown sharp enough for me to be able to detect the horror leaking from him especially considering how badly out of practice I was. "It also means..."

He waited quietly, then nudged me through the Force, even though I knew he was loathe to know. _What does it mean?_ he asked me gently.

"'Fatherless.'"

He was silent for some time, standing like a block of ebony marble. Then he said as softly as it seemed possible for him to do, "Some cultures believe that the name you are given affects your destiny." I had heard this before, but my curiosity as to why _he_ would know was piqued. "Your parents did not know those other meanings. They would have died rather than wish such terrible afflictions upon you."

The Force whispered softly in my ear, showing me something I would not have believed possible. Darth Vader was talking about my _real_ parents. "How do you know my parents?" I burst out.

He did not deign me with a response. Instead he just stood there, watching me. Every time I had come into contact with him over the past few days, he had seemed almost...afraid - afraid to let go of me through the Force. Now he stood there, unresponsive.

"What is it?" I demanded, feeling anger at such scrutiny welling up within me. "Why do you just stand there? Say something - _anything_! Respond to me! How did you know my real parents?"

Suddenly his gaze, if it was possible, intensified. "Say that again," he said, moving slowly toward me.

"Respond to me?" I said, utterly bemused.

"No, no, what you said after that," he responded.

I waited as long as I could, drawing out the silence, but soon I could no longer resist. "How did you know my real parents?" I said softly.

"Louder."

I lifted my chin, not about to lose my pride, and said clearly, "How did you know my real parents?"

He took a step back as if struck. I could hear the _whirr_ of his thoughts through the Force, but I wasn't strong enough to sense what they contained. After an infinity of strained silence, he said slowly, "I knew your parents long ago. Long before...this." He waved his hand vaguely, but I somehow knew he meant the Empire, the Rebellion, everything. "Your mother was...your mother was beautiful. You look like her," he said, with a hint of a strange emotion lacing his voice. Was it hope? Fear? Pride? All three? He resumed his pacing. "Why did you not tell me you were adopted?" he demanded. "Why were you hidden from me?"

"Hidden? I was not hidden!" I exclaimed, now confused. "All those years, I was in plain sight." He stopped his pacing and locked gazes with me. I knew we were both thinking about all those times we encountered each other - in the corridors of the palace on Alderran when I was a child, then as I grew older, arguments (which were more like fights that we let no one else hear) over what "good policies" should be. He knew just as well as I did that never in all our nineteen years of acquaintanceship had I been hidden from him. For some reason, this knowledge had let loose a furious deluge of anger from him. He resumed his pacing.

After some time, he spat his first question out again, "Why did you not tell me you were adopted when I took you on as my apprentice?"

I responded calmly and clearly, though in truth I was seeing red, "I did not know myself until eight days before the destruction of...the destruction of the Death Star." My change in phrase did not escape him. I shifted keys, trying to keep myself under control. "I did not tell you because for one, I did not know who my real parents were. I saw no benefits that would come from sharing the information with you, so I kept my silence."

"Politicians..." he snarled, true anger coming from him now. "Always with their own benefit in mind..."

Something within me snapped. "I was in the grips of a man who had shown himself capable of searching out and destroying everything that I held dear, a man who had no qualms about torturing me both in body and mind. Of course I was looking out for myself!"

"I could never have killed you," he said softly, that same strange emotion shining through the darkness surrounding him.

"But you certainly tried," I responded viciously, not about to feel pity for this monster. "Am I the only one here who remembers what you did to me in that holding cell on the Death Star? You want to see the scars? Refresh your memory?" I taunted, no longer in control of my own tongue.

"It was not my fault that you choose to assist the Rebel cause, Princess," he replied darkly. "I did what I had to."

"Oh yeah?" I replied, deciding to give as good as I got. I didn't remember standing up, but now I was, braced against his lies and fists clenched at my sides. "So, Torture a Kid was on your To-Do list, was it? Then right below it, Destroy A World?"

"I WAS DOING MY DUTY!" he roared.

"AND I WAS DOING MINE!"

"IT WAS NOT MY CHOICE TO DESTROY ALDERRAN!"

"YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED TARKIN FROM DOING IT!"

"HIS ORDERS CAME FROM THE EMPEROR!"

"OH, SO THAT CHANGES IT, DOES IT? FOLLOW THAT DECREPIT MAN AS HE DESTROYS THE GALAXY, WORLD BY WORLD?"

"I BROUGHT PEACE TO THE GALAXY!"

"HOW? BY DESTROYING ANYONE WHO DARED TO VOICE AN OPINION CONTRARY TO YOUR OWN?"

"WHY, YOU..."

I felt the Force surge around him. Before I knew what was happening, I was flying back toward the wall as if thrown. Quickly, I tried to use the Force to slow myself down. When I hit the wall, my vision went gray. I don't know how long I lay there, curled up against the pain, before a black-robed figure was bending over me. Strangely, I could feel _concern_ emanating from him, concern and horror at what he had done. I sensed that he was saying something, but I couldn't make out anything, my hearing as blurred as my eyesight. A black _something_ was being extended to me, gesturing with some foreign emotion. But when that black something touched my shoulder, attempting to lift me, my body reacted of its own accord. My body spasmed, following some unknown instruction laid down years before to _not let him touch me_. My hand rose in the air. I think I gave some vague gesture, but my message through the Force was much clearer: _Get away!_ He jerked back as if branded. He slowly rose, hurt (hurt?) emanating from him. Little by little, I pushed myself up. Slowly I rose up from the ground, but my vision went gray again, and I started falling. Leather-bound hands caught me, but I jerked myself away, responding to that subconscious warning. I caught myself on the chair and made my way, step by step, to my room. That black..._figure_ hovered nearby, but didn't touch me again. I collapsed on my bed, and the last things I remembered were that dark figure standing protectively over me and a comforting voice echoing through my mind, saying, "You truly are your father's daughter."

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><p><strong>Please, please, <em>please<em> review!**


	15. Chapter 14

**I have no words at the moment, except... PLEASE and REVIEW! :)**

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><p>I spent the next eight weeks in the medbay, being treated for the concussion I had received as well as <em>more<em> physical therapy. I was also treated to three different scoldings, all of them centered on my concealing of the truth about my health. Jix's was by far the most colorful, Darth Vader's the most humiliating (for with it came commands to the doctors to restrain me by any means necessary if I attempted to leave before the appointed day), and Dr. Zeller's the most shame-filling:

"Leia," he had said, looking at me, disappointment in me shining through his eyes, "you hurt no one but yourself by leaving early. Now, you will be confined to these rooms for four more weeks. The over-exertion you experienced even in walking back to your rooms would have landed you here for another week, not even considering the concussion." I couldn't even meet his eyes. Everything _had_ been my fault – lying to the doctors, antagonizing Vader – everything. Now I would pay the penalty for my own stupidity. Four weeks. _Four weeks_ of no physical activity, overexertion (mental or physical), or reading. Four weeks and _then _physical therapy could begin. I was well and truly cooked.

Slowly (agonizingly so), time passed. Eight weeks of boredom so complete I didn't know what to do with myself. But to be fair, some good things did come of it: Alison and Aliks Stahl – twin trainees and the closest people to my age in the base – taught me how to play holochess; Jix taught me how to play sabacc at a much higher level of skill; and most importantly, I learned how to access the Force without attracting Vader's attention. This was saying quite a lot, seeing as he was all but breathing down my neck, preventing me from going too far into the Force (which would fall under the category of 'overexertion', he had made known to me). Finally, my eight weeks of imprisonment were over. It was Day 164, and I was heading back to training.

To welcome me back, Jix had me run specialized killers the whole time: they worked like regular killers, only at the ends, I would stop and deliver ten _good_ punches and kicks to a sandbag dummy. That evening, Vader and I resumed my Force training. No words other than those necessary to convey instructions were exchanged.

And so it went. The suns rose, and the suns set. My life fell back into a rhythm. Soon, I was back in top physical condition, and my Force powers were heightened enough for Vader to begin conducting minor Force duels with me as well as begin to introduce to me rudimentary lightsaber techniques. Time flowed on. But on Day 193, after a rather lengthy absence, Vader returned to Raze in a towering rage. Now, I don't mean the normal anger that constantly smoldered in a cloud around him, I mean a full-out wildfire of a rage, soaring out of proportion.

All day long, I could feel through our Force bond tremors of roared words and ripples of a fury so intense it made the anger that I carried around with me daily look like minor annoyance. I waited in apprehension, hoping to ride the storm out. But contrary to all I expected, his anger did not dissipate over the course of the day – on the contrary, it built in size and strength. I went to my Force lesson with trepidation. An hour early, I went up to my rooms, but I soon sensed that he was there already, pacing, as he seemed wont to do. I quietly let myself in, then tried as hard as I could to prolong the inevitable moment when he would notice me and, consequently, all hell would break loose. I made it three steps in before he whirled around to face me. He pointed wordlessly at me, then at the floor about four feet across from him. The rebellious streak of mine wanted to buck his instructions, but thank heavens my rational part took over and led me to stand at the point he had indicated. He went back to pacing. I waited, uneasiness mixed with curiosity flooding my system. The tension was so thick in the room that it could have been cut with a knife. Finally, without breaking his stride, he began to speak:

"Leia, I know you have no desire to have anything to do with me, but please hear me out on this. We have a mutual enemy." His tone was so vehement and so deathly serious I was almost taken aback. Never, in all our twenty-odd years of acquaintanceship (which, one might note, included a particularly memorable and torturous encounter), never had I heard him speak in such a vehement, almost blood-thirsty tone; it chilled me to the bone. "In the past, I was consumed with admiration and respect for him, but now with the knowledge of the full extent of the horrors he has wreaked upon me, I want to destroy him." The temperature was rapidly plummeting. "Leia, for more than twenty years, he has imprisoned me in this _TORTURE CHAMBER_!" he roared, gesturing to his armor. His anger was beginning to skyrocket. "I had terrible injuries, that is certain, but I _could have been healed_. I discovered today that healing was within my grasp all these years, yet he concealed from me the means by which to be healed. Instead, he locked me inside of this..._thing_, forcing me to depend on my very source of torment to live." When I looked at him through the Force, he was a...a thunderhead, a towering storm cloud building minute by minute, charged with insurmountable power. "Every motion causes me pain," he said, anger changing his voice from that of an already chilling personage to the voice of the Dark Side itself. "Every motion causes me pain beyond the comprehension of most sentient beings." He stopped his pacing and looked over to me. He seemed to come back to himself a little. Somehow, I could see him, as he was in the Force visions, running his hand through his hair as an unconscious expression of his looming emotions. "What I'm saying is that your anger would be better served if directed against the Emperor, rather than myself," he concluded.

I gave pause, pondering what I had just heard. "Why are you saying this to me?" I asked him because I honestly _did_ want to know.

His anger reignited and he went back to pacing. "I joined the Emperor because he promised me that he would restore peace and justice to the galaxy. I believed in him wholeheartedly, but he had no intentions of doing anything of the sort. Year by year, I have watched "justice" degrade and the so-called peace implode. For a long time I waited, searching for an ally to back me when the inevitable occurred. Then I found you." His voice had changed radically, suddenly translating from the very voice of anger to something...different. Now he was in true earnest, speaking to _me_ instead of raging almost to himself: "You share my desire for justice in the galaxy, and your anger against the Empire gives you strength beyond your comprehension." I could see him pausing, then running his hands through his hair again. He continued, almost exasperatedly: "What I'm saying is that now I have hope of overthrowing Palpatine's tyranny, and I'm inviting you to help me."

I was too overcome by the emotions and theories swirling around within my mind to make a response.

"Think about it, Leia," he said quietly and urgently, "Think about it rationally. Don't let your hatred for me determine your choice. Together, we would have the power to overcome him. And once he's dead, I would give you free rein to establish the kind of government _you_ want - a republic, an empire, a democracy, whatever _you_ feel is right. Our chance to act is fast approaching - for once your Rebellion has done something useful, by making him spread his army thin across the galaxy. We would be able to enter the palace and destroy him once and for all." He extended his hand across the span between us. "What do you say?"

My shocked silence spanned a wide stretch of time. Then, because the Force told me that it was the question to ask, I said, "Why me?" When he didn't respond, I went on: "What's so special about _me_ that you could not attempt this before now?" More silence. Then everything fell into place. "It's about my parents, isn't it? It's because of who they are that you want me with you, isn't it?" I eyed him. "Padme Amidala was my mother, wasn't she?"

He responded so quietly I almost didn't hear him: "Yes." His voice gained in strength as he went on. "Yes, she was your mother. You share her firebrand tendencies and political savvy. She was such a strong, inspiring political figure that even to this day, when I see the whiners that inhabit the Senate, I feel nothing but scorn for those self-serving, sniveling cowards because I saw _her_ defend the lives of millions with no thought to her own. That's one of the reasons why I choose you - you would be capable of uniting the galaxy, just as she was."

"Who was my father, then?" I demanded. "I am almost certain he was a Jedi, and a powerful one at that, to give me the connection to the Force that I have. You know, don't you?"

"Yes...yes I do."

The silence was as thick and heavy as a blanket, weighing us down.

"Well, are you going to tell me?" I said fiercely.

"You are not going to let this go, are you?" he said, exasperated and half-amused.

"No, no I'm not," I snapped. Finally the moment had come when I would learn the truth about my parents, and he was _laughing_ at me? Something shattered within me, and I burst out at him, "I have experienced many strange things these past six months, and all seem to revolve around information that _you_ possess that I do not. Everything comes back to my parents, even your taking me on as your apprentice! The least you can do for me, after all that you have put me through, is to tell me this truth: who was my father?"

The silence dragged on interminably. Then I felt a great rush of foreboding through the Force, right before he said:

"_I_ am your father."


	16. Chapter 15

Silence. Silence sheathing the two of us. No one else. Vaguely, on the outskirts of my mind, I knew I should be reacting to this. Even if it was just one big, fat lie, I should still react; I should let him know that his lies and his mind tricks wouldn't work on me. But I didn't. All I can recall of my thoughts at that time were what could be described as a cotton ball, or fog – heavy, thick, and colorless. Try as I might, I could not force my way out of it. My father? _Him_? I don't recall any emotions – no anger, no incredulity, no shock, no despair. Just an absence. In a last-ditch attempt to drag myself from this pit of..._blankness_, I opened my mouth and moved it, trusting in the Force that words – real, tangible words – would come out.

"It would be just as possible for...for...I don't know, Anakin Skywalker to be my father!" I sputtered out.

He gave a little half-laugh, pain and amusement flickering like a vibroblade around him. "Child, I _am _Anakin Skywalker!"

I paused, my mind trying to comprehend what he had told me. Anakin...Anakin _Skywalker_. I had heard the stories, whispered to me in the dead of night by my papa. Stories that were forbidden by the Emperor and so were never to be repeated. Stories of the heroes of the Clone Wars - the Jedi. And most especially the greatest Jedi in history, the Hero With No Fear - Anakin Skywalker. When I asked for more stories about him, a shadow would pass over my papa's face. I never understood why, and (unusually for me) I never questioned it. But the stories...Oh, the stories... Leaping from tall buildings, facing down droideka fire, defeating Sith Lords, saving the lives of millions across the galaxy. He was the hero of my childhood. As I grew older and went into politics, others like Mon Mothma, my papa, and Queen Amidala of Naboo grew in my eyes. But never did I forget my first hero, and late at night, whenever I couldn't sleep because of some injustice I had read about or witnessed myself, I would retell Papa's stories to myself. Anakin Skywalker was my torch, my light against injustice. My papa had had to wait until I was old enough to understand to tell me that he had died in the Great Jedi Purge. _That_ was what truly spurred me to keep fighting the Emperor and his Jedi-murdering minion Darth Vader.

So now, to be told that not only was Anakin Skywalker _alive_ but that he _was_ Darth Vader was, to say the least, a shock. To put it into fuller terms, I was reeling. My greatest hero turning out to be my greatest enemy? And not only that, he was my _father_? If the situation wasn't so dire, I would have said it was all just some poor joke. But no, I had learned the hard way over the past six months that Darth Vader would prefer to be thrown down as rancor food rather than lie.

Like a slow-burning fire, the emotions within me began to build. The silence stretched between us. I sensed that he wanted to speak, but was trying to be respectful of the plight I was in. Anger began rippling through me. How _dare_ he tell such an outrageous lie. Yes, that was what it was – a vicious lie! Bail Organa was my father; _he_ was just a lying, manipulative Sith with no heart and no conscious. I looked up at him, my temper now in full flow.

"You are not my father," I said coldly. "You have never been my father, and you will never be my father." But even as I said it, I _knew_. It was the truth. I had always known it; my hatred had just kept the veil over my sight. But this realization didn't make me any happier. On the contrary, I felt my already-mounting emotions start to swirl into a hurricane. Instead of feeling horror or anger or hurt, I only felt disgust. My _father_ had tortured me almost to the breaking point, destroyed the only home I had ever known and with it, the only parents I had ever known. Then he proceeded to hound me across the galaxy for three years, destroying anyone who happened to stumble into his path. And _then_ he used not just me, but Han and Chewbacca as nothing more than live bait to catch Luke Skywalker, his..._son_? A mixed bag of feelings were unloaded on me at the thought of Luke. I _had_ always felt a connection with him, but his passiveness and calming nature had always annoyed me, effectively setting the two of us apart in my mind. But now I understood. My vision-memories during my coma finally made sense: I was only a half of a whole. The memory of being ripped away from the "other me" stung my heart. We were one, him and I, and ironically, the destines we had chosen reflected that. He was so gentle and so patient that I sometimes wanted to shake him until some angry or cruel word left his mouth; it only made sense that he had chosen to be a Jedi. I, on the other hand, was quick to anger and slow to forgive; it felt right that I had chosen the Sith. The Dark Side and the Light Side – two halves of the one true whole. Then something horrifying occurred to me. "Were you always a Sith?" I asked _him_, "Or did you fall to the Dark Side?" Desperately, I hoped it wasn't the latter.

He answered slowly, "From the time I was nine, I was raised as a Jedi. But right before you were born, I was faced with a choice: to submit and let fate take its course or to act and change it. I chose to act, and with that, the floodgates of the Dark Side were opened. So, yes, I fell to the Dark Side."

With a sinking heart, I realized that my spur-of-the-moment theory had been true: Luke and I had each chosen one of our father's paths. Luke had taken the Light. I had taken the Dark. Of the two of us, _I_ was the one more like him. The thought made me weak. I was my father's daughter. All the memories of my papa saying that to me, especially after my moments of extreme rebellion, came streaming back. Now I understood why he always had an air of sadness around him when he said it. He had always known. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, scream, collapse, or just run from the room. Thankfully, I was able to contain myself and did none of the above. I only looked up at him, the Dark Side pumping through me, and said in my best neutral politician's voice, "Thank you for telling me. Now, please excuse me – I need some time to digest this information." He inclined his head. As fast as I could, I strode from the room.

I walked through Raze, my heart pumping in my ears. Blindly, I strode through the winding corridors with no idea where exactly I was going. All concept of time had vanished out the window. Somehow, I made my way to the training center. On the back table was an array of lightsabers – mostly training ones, but hidden under them were three real ones. The Force ringing in my ears, I grabbed the one that felt right and turned three combat droids on with a flick of my fingers. Slash, slash, parry, dodge. Jump, spin, engage, spin, block, slash, kick. Stab, counter, kick, block, slash, engage, spin, block, kick. Parry, dodge, kick, block, slash, spin, kick, kick, kick. Parry, parry, block, block, slash, slash, slash, kick, stab, jump, slash, sweep with the legs, kick, slash, stab, stab, kick. Jump, somersault, reverse-grip stab, slash, block, kick, spin, stab. Slash, block, slash, block, slash, kick, slash, kick, slash. Stab, kick, somersault, handspring, kick, swing, slash, slash, dodge, stab. Duck, slash, block, kick, jump, slash, slash, stab, kick, slash, downward strike. I looked around wildly for my next target. It took me a second to realize that I had no more targets: I had activated them all unconsciously and destroyed them one by one. Now they were little more than scrap metal. By now, I was so deep in the Force, I was thinking at what felt like hyperspeed. I was no longer Leia Organa – I was just a channel of the Force. It roared through me, and I gloried in it. I was on fire. A wild laugh escaped me at the utter thrill of this power. There was nothing I couldn't do: rulers would grovel before me, worlds would fall at my feet, and I would rule, for I was all-powerful!

By chance, I looked in one of the mirrors that lined the room, and immediately began losing my connection in shock at what I was seeing. My eyes were red as glowing coals, flickering with the white heat of the Force. But even as I watched, horrified, they began to change slowly back to their normal brown hue. The Force drained out of me, and what was left was a mere husk. I shivered, suddenly very cold. What had just happened to me? I sat down hard. I was now tired, so very tired. I curled up next to the remains of a combat droid, using it as a makeshift pillow. As I laid my head down, I felt my eyes closing of their own accord.

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><p><strong>Many thanks to everyone who has reviewed! Fear not, the story is not done – I've just been fiddling around with my formatting :) As always, reviews are much appreciated!<strong>


	17. Chapter 16

I woke up the next morning with a real pillow under my head and a warm blanket tucked around me. There was no doubt within my mind who had put them there, but oddly, the thought didn't bother me at all excepting a twinge of minor annoyance – I had my pride. But it was a strange feeling, this absence of, well, _feeling_ against him: for the better part of my teenage years, some strong emotion had always filled me whenever I looked at him. That habit only escalated after I was captured onboard the Tantive IV. Now, knowing he was not just my own flesh and blood but my _father_, was surreal. This had to be the work of the Force, bringing me this acceptance. I sighed. My papa hadn't been kidding when he said that curiosity killed the cat. But the damage was done, and who knew? This knowledge might be part of the design of the Force. What was done was done – I had found my father, and, though he might not be the shining ideal I had imagined, I _had_ found him. I would never be able to forgive Darth Vader for all the horrors he wreaked upon me, but I _could_ begin taking the steps to trying to forgive my father.

The next few days passed with time almost seeming to warp: one second I would be rolling out of bed, the next eating lunch, and the next collapsing back into bed. All the while, I pretended that I didn't see the outpouring of happiness from my enemy-master-father every time I answered his call through the Force. I could tell that he was truly trying to become worthy of me, the daughter he had never known. It drove me crazy sometimes just how obvious it had been; all those years, I had stood apart from him, never seeing (or refusing to see) just how alike the two of us were. It was like feeling your face, thinking you know it backwards and forwards, then actually looking in a mirror. The veil had been pulled from my eyes; I had emerged into the light. All that remained was to decide what to do at the end of my year of training. The thought had crossed my mind that, after I rescued Han, I would come back to Raze and continue training. I had realized that, now that I knew the truth, I didn't want to leave. That in itself was strange – these people were Imperials, the enemies of the Rebellion. But I had discovered that that wasn't entirely true: all of the people in the base were loyal to _Vader_, not the Emperor. If Vader _did_ stage a coup, he would have many beings across the galaxy backing him, myself included: when he destroyed Palpatine, I wanted to be there. I wanted to be there to see a new and better galaxy established: I wanted to trust that what he had told me that night was true. I wanted to trust him, pure and simple. I wanted to be Anakin Skywalker's daughter, and that wish had begun to fulfill itself. Then, on Day 199, everything came crashing down.

I was in the training center, working on action meditation, a technique my master-father had developed himself: instead of sitting quietly and attempting to touch the Force that way, one could dip into the Force while performing some kind of action, like sparring or dueling. When he had explained it to me and he saw my enthusiastic reaction, I could see through the Force an understanding smile on his face. Today, I was working on a gymnastics routine Jix had set me. With every flip, twist, and handspring, I went deeper into the Force. As I was reaching my peak connection, I felt a foreign power latch onto the part of my mind where the Force resided. Being separated from the energy field that had become so engrained within me was pain so unbearable I screamed. The power lessened its grip, and I was able to think again.

_Leia?_ The power whispered. I was so shocked I almost lost control of my thoughts. It was Luke.

I hurried to reach back to the power, following the path back to where his presence originated. I gently latched myself onto the Force within him and responded, _Luke?_

_Softly! _he hissed. _You've become so strong in the Force that anyone powerful will be able to hear us unless we whisper. _I could feel within his regret at causing me pain while opening the connection, his wariness at talking with the apprentice of Darth Vader, but superseding those two, a powerful sense of urgency. _ Leia, I don't know how long I can keep this connection open, so I'll keep it brief_ he said. _Han is gone_.

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><p><strong>Thank you everyone for such wonderful feedback! Please don't stop! :) <strong>


	18. Chapter 17

_Han is gone_. Those were Luke's words. It is impossible to put into words what I felt at that little phrase. Immediately, I began pelting him with questions:

_What are you talking about? Where are you? What happened?_

_Whoa, whoa, whoa, Leia, slow down. I'm getting there! I'm on Tatooine right now. I've just paid a visit to Jabba's palace – Jabba is dead, the place is like riot scene, and an important 'decoration'_ (I could feel his anger and distaste at that word) _is missing. _

_Han?_ I asked.

_Yes, Han. I opened the mind of one of the lowlife bottom dwellers at the palace to see what he remembered, but the images were so blurred by spice, I'm not quite sure what I saw. What I think happened was this: a strange woman walked into the palace uncontested, put the inhabitants of the throne room in some sort of haze, pulled out a blaster, and shot Jabba point-blank. The haze must have been incredibly powerful, for he didn't remember anyone reacting either at her shooting Jabba or her going over and removing Han from the wall. Then she just walked out. No one has seen her since. Leia, she has to be a Force user to be able to put people into such a weak state! What are we going to do?_

I uttered a vicious Corellian curse Han himself had unwittingly taught me. Han was _gone_. What in the nine Corellian hells _were_ we going to do? The mystery woman would have to be the first place to look: find her and we could find Han. _Can you send me the image of this woman?_ I asked Luke.

He didn't respond, instead filling my mind with a face: a fine-boned face with a small nose, full lips, and gentle cheekbones, framed by vividly red hair. But her most striking characteristic were her eyes – long-lashed green orbs that shone with a malevolent darkness. I had never seen her before, but I knew with the certainty of the Force that I would be seeing her again. _I'll start looking _I said to him.

Luke gave the mental equivalent of clearing his throat before saying _Leia? I know this will be hard for you, but could you ask my...Darth Vader if he'll help?_ He seemed suddenly afraid, rushing to provide excuses for asking such a terrible thing of me: _He has his own intelligence network, he has endless credits at his disposal, and he knows how to search for a Force-user. Leia, he could really speed things up. He – _

I cut him off gently. _Luke, he's my father too._

He stopped in shock, then an eruption of joy shot from him across our bond and hit me in the chest, showering me in his love. _Somehow, I already knew_ he said after he got himself under control. I smiled – after all those years apart, we were together again.

_I'll ask him _I promised.

Both of us hung on, dreading the moment when we would have to separate, and we would be alone once again. _Love you_ Luke and I said together, then swiftly cut the bond at the same time. I gasped and fell to my knees. Cold...so cold...alone...all alone. Being cut off from him hurt me so much, I was shaking. I don't know how long I lay there, unable to do anything, before I struggled to my feet and stumbled off to my master-father's office.

I must have looked terrible when I stumbled into the room, for my master-father immediately began exuding concern. He quickly helped me into a chair and gave me a stern command to rest before trying to tell him anything. I sat there, gasping, trying to regain control of myself. Finally, after a long period of simply trying to warm myself, I was able to stutter out that Luke had made contact with me through the Force. My father-master's reaction was nothing short of stunned. I knew he had questions, but I knew that once I stopped talking, I wouldn't be able to stop; I plowed on with Luke's story. When he heard about the red-headed woman, an almost audible 'click' echoed through his mind. He began to pace. When I showed him the image that Luke had given to me, he went to his desk and pulled out a simple black box – the box I had won when I made it through Jix's maze that first time. He wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and told me to carry the box and follow him. With that, he strode out the door. I hurried to catch up. As we walked through Raze – toward the hangar, I noted – my father-master barked an order into his comlink to have his shuttle ready. Soon, I could stand it no more:

"Who is this woman?" I asked him. "What's going on here?"

Without breaking stride, he said, "The woman you saw is known as Mara Jade, among other things. She is a professional assassin, at age twenty, no less. She is the best of the best, but unlike most assassins, she only serves one master." With a sinking feeling, I knew what was to come next. "The Emperor."

A flurry of emotions began to smother me. "What are we going to do?" I asked my father.

"Move quickly," he said and broke into a run. Without another word, I followed him.

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><p><strong>Hi everybody! The next chapter cometh in the dark of night... :D <strong>

**Thank you _so_ much to all of you who submitted reviews! **


	19. Chapter 18

By the time we made it to the shuttle, most of my nausea from separating from Luke had subsided. I strapped myself into the copilot seat as my father took the pilot's seat. Not another word was exchanged as we lifted off and away from Raze. I chanced a look back at the wasteland planet, the most permanent home I had had since Alderran. I had the strangest feeling that I wouldn't be seeing it for a long time. My father made the hyperspace calculations, then made the jump. We entered the swirling vortex of blue that was hyperspace. About fifteen minutes of tense silence passed. Finally, I decided to give voice to my thoughts.

"Why would the Emperor's personal assassin go after a smuggler, and a carbonite-frozen one at that?" I mused. "Your thoughts?"

He was silent for a moment or two, then said, "I think the Emperor felt you erupt in the Force four nights ago. Actually, I'm sure that's what happened. He felt you, a child of Anakin Skywalker, immerse yourself in the Dark Side. He is now willing to use any means necessary to capture you." He paused, then said after some consideration, "But I don't think that he knows that it's _you_."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"What I mean is that you and Luke feel almost exactly the same in the Force. Only someone who is familiar with both of you would be able to tell the difference. My guess is that he thought you were Luke. Palpatine's spies have probably kept him well-informed about Luke's friendship with the smuggler, and this is either an attempt to capture him or drive 'him' deeper into the Dark Side. Or both," he conceded after some thought.

I mulled this over. Then, deciding to switch topics, I asked him, "So, what's in this box?" I asked.

"The components of a lightsaber," Vader answered. "Grips, magnifiers, activating components, and, most importantly, a wide array of crystals."

"So I'm finally going to be building my own lightsaber!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," he answered. "Normally, we would set aside a long span of time – three days to a week – for you to do this, but I have a feeling you're going to be needing your own lightsaber before long. Let's get started."

Over the next hour, he had me go into a light Force trance and select the components I would be using, then go into a deeper trance so that he could guide my hands through the Force. Slowly but surely, my own lightsaber began taking shape.

I had finished the hilt and was about to begin fitting my focusing unit when suddenly, I doubled over, my mind going numb with the pain that was coursing through me. I think I was screaming, but the pain was too intense for me to really process anything but fighting it. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. My lids flickered open. I was lying on the floor of the cockpit, my master-father bending over me, concern radiating out from him.

"Leia, what happened?" he asked in his deep, dark voice, a voice tinged with urgency and concern.

"Pain...pain...hurts...hurting me..." I gasped out. "Green eyes...head...crowned with flames...Han!" I exclaimed, my mind suddenly shifting into focus. "Han is in pain...I think that's what...what I was feeling...I felt this...before...before when you...you were torturing him...but it...it was never this strong..."

"It's because you have grown in the Force, child," he responded sadly. "You already had an empathy link with him, but as your connection to the Force has grown, so has the link, even to the point where you feel his pain as if it were your own."

I stiffened. All of Han's agony came crashing back. It was pain beyond bearing, but not just because _I_ was the one going through the torture: it was also because I knew that it was _Han_ in pain. I writhed in agony, all thoughts flown out of my head. Then suddenly, it was gone. No, not fully gone – it was still there, but something was blocking it, shielding me from its power. I don't think I had the strength to open my own eyes so I must have opened my eyes in the Force. The source of the pain stretched from far away from me in a roaring river of red the color of blood; a dark figure stood between me and the crimson river, absorbing it silently. He turned his head; it was my father. I felt tears springing up in my eyes. He looked at me and gave me a small, encouraging grin. The only indications of pain he gave were a deepening of the wrinkles around his eyes and a tightening of his mouth. He bore my pain stoically. Still looking at me, he gave a small shrug, somehow conveying his thoughts: _At least now we have a path to follow to find your smuggler_. He met my eyes. _Finish your lightsaber_, he said. _We are approaching the source of this pain, and I want you to have yours ready when we arrive_. I complied, sinking deeper into the Force and letting my hands work of their own accord.

I opened my eyes. We had left the tunnel of hyperspace and were shooting toward a rust-red planet I had only heard about in my holocron of Sith teachings. "Korriban," I murmured.

"The ancient seat of the Sith order," my father rumbled next to me. "I only hope we're in time."

Without another word, we shot down towards the planet.

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><p><strong>A truly sincere Thank You to everyone who has reviewed! You are all wonderful! :)<strong>


	20. Chapter 19

I looked around, assessing our situation. After an uneventful landing in one of the caves of Korriban, my father and I had set out for the location the Force had pointed out to me. After about a half-hour hike through the winding canyons of the reddish desert planet, my father began pointing out signs of habitation that only a native of another desert planet would have noticed. Now, we stood, concealed by the rock face, staring down at what was unmistakably an Imperial fort.

"How do we get in?" I murmured to my father.

"You're the expert at entering Imperial outposts undetected. You tell me," he responded, his mask concealing a smile.

I choked down a laugh. He had a point. "Have you ever come to this base?" I asked him, hoping he would know of something, _anything_ we could exploit to gain entry.

"Three times," he answered. "Once right after...after you were born, once four years later, and once last year." I sensed his pain at his mention of my birth, which I knew coincided with my mother's death. His grip on his emotions solidified, and he answered, "There are at least three different ways to get in that I can think of. The back gate, the entrance through the garbage dump, and the hangar. There are probably other smaller ones, but I'm not sure how well they would work for me."

I pursed my lips, considering these options. How was I to get us both inside what I suspected to be an incredibly well-defended Imperial fort? Now that I thought about it, my father was not what you would call a small man – close to six and a half feet of pure muscle, _plus_ his armor, there were very few spaces he could fit through that I would consider _huge_. Then a light went off in my head. "What about the front door?" I asked him in an innocent tone that belied my slowly spreading smirk. As I laid out my idea for him, I could feel a smile mirroring my own come to my father's face.

"If I had any doubts before now that you were _my_ daughter, that crazy plan you just suggested dissolved them all," he said.

Without another word, we started heading back to where we came. This would require some acting on my father's part and a whole lot of luck. I chanced a look back at the fort. _Hang on, Han_, I thought desperately. _I'm almost there_.

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><p><strong>20,000 hits? And 105 reviews? Aw… :)<strong>

**After this chapter, there is one more and an epilogue, both of which need some editing. I will be updating as soon as both are ready, which will for sure be within the next week. Happy waiting! ;) **


	21. Chapter 20

_Never again…never again…never again_, I thought. I was huddled in the fetal position, trying to make myself as small as possible. Despite my best efforts, I was still crammed beyond belief in the space under the seat of my father's landspeeder. The original intent of the space was to store tools and sundry items for the maintenance of the vehicle and was therefore not a space I would visit again with joy. I bit my lip, stifling a moan that threatened to escape. Silence was key here: if I was heard, I would be discovered and then lose any advantage of surprise. I felt the vibration of the motor and the thrusters through the wall at my back. It had been a comforting feeling…for a time. Now my head was ringing with the whine and tuneless _thrum_. As we drove, I fought to draw myself out of the Force. My father had told me that since childhood, Jade had been trained in the detection of Force-sensitives. It was imperative that she not sense me. Little by little, I pulled my Force self into a tiny ball, concealing its glowing power from the ripples and eddies of the Force around me. Just in time too – I felt the landspeeder begin to slow down.

_We're at the gates_, my father said through our Force bond. I responded with the affirmative, and the landspeeder ground to a halt. Dimly, I felt the approach of a being that was a beacon of Dark energy. But it wasn't a beacon in the way that my father was – an inferno of barely contained rage and heady hatred – instead, it was more of an _absence_. If my father was anger and fire incarnate, this being was coldness and shadows. As the person came closer and closer, they clarified in the Force, showing me more and more nuances of who they were. As distance decreased, my surety that this was Mara Jade increased. Even though she projected nothing of what she was thinking or feeling into the Force, it still practically thrummed around her, with ripples spreading out periodically to feel and explore all that was around her. I felt her stop and stare up at my father coldly.

A cold voice I knew instinctively belonged to her sounded out, tinged with sarcasm: "Lord Vader. A pleasure, as always."

"Just cut to the basics, Jade. I don't have all day," he said sharply.

"Well, excuse me for trying to run a base properly. Not that you would know."

I felt my father's rage and knew it wasn't faked. If there was anything that infuriated him more than incompetence, it was being hinted at that he himself was incompetent. His next words were almost a snarl: "Jade, all I need is a quick access to your mechanics shop. I need a few things, and then we can both go our separate ways." When she didn't respond, he said softly, "Jade, now." If I had been standing instead of crouched in half, I would have curled up in a ball. He wasn't just using words, he was also applying pure pressure on her mind. I covered my ears with my hands, but the pain was inside of me. I still detected nothing of her inner workings, but I began to feel a tendril of pain stream from her. Then it was gone.

"Fine. Go ahead," she said through gritted teeth. "Mind if some of my men stay behind to guard your speeder? It looks…valuable," she concluded, distaste dripping from her every syllable.

I felt my father pause for an infinitesimal span of time. I narrowed my Force self to just our bond and said to him _How many?_

Through that same bond, I felt him grin and say _Four. The one with red shoulder markings has the comm. Take him out first._

_Yes sir, _I said jokingly. _Go ahead. I've got them._

I felt him acquiesce and start to move away, four of Jade's men with him. As soon as he was gone, I just barely heard Jade giving orders to the rest of her men. I augmented my hearing with the Force and listened:

"You four stay here with the speeder. All of you with me, except for you four; you already have your assignment. We need to find Lord Vader's ship." I felt heads nod and the teams begin to break up. I heard the thrum of desert cruisers and landspeeders start up. The sound soon diminished as they shot off, and the feeling of _absence_ in the Force that surrounded Jade diminished as well.

I waited for three minutes, checking my wrist chrono as frequently as a child waiting for the time they can go and play. _Finally_, the three minutes were up. I used the wrench that had been digging into my lower rib cage this whole time to loosen the holdings for the seat. Slowly, I lifted it up. I peeked at the guards: all of them were facing out, their backs to the vehicle. I checked my chrono one more time. I had five minutes to get free of these guys and get into the base before my father set off the next distraction. I slowly eased myself into a position from which I could spring up and out. Once I was almost standing, I waited…then sprang out. On my way to the floor, I grabbed the shoulder plates of the red-stripped trooper, dragging him down with me. I thumbed the activation switch on my lightsaber, and the dark red blade of energy sprang out. I thrust the blade through his armor's gap between chest plate and helmet and spun around to face the others. They had been so caught off guard that they hadn't even had time to aim their rifles. Quickly, I lunged forward and killed them the same way I had the first. My father had lectured me very thoroughly on this in the twenty minutes we had had before returning to the base – that spot was both the weakest part of their armor and the only spot where I could strike them where it wouldn't be obvious that the wound was lightsaber-inflicted. I felt revulsion at myself for killing these men in cold blood, but my Rebel training had taught me to just forget about it for the moment and move on – you could think about them if you were still alive after the battle. My father's philosophy from his Jedi days, when, he said, he still dwelt constantly on the people he killed, had been remarkably similar. Now though, after more than a quarter of a century under Palpatine, he had told me, a never-ending bleakness in his eyes, that he had become as much a machine on the inside as he was on the outside. That it was only Luke and now I that drew him out of his apathy was left unsaid, but no less understood.

The first obstacle destroyed, I sprinted for the door into the rest of the base, adrenaline coursing through my system. An image of the layout of the base filtered into my brain: in the weeks before I discovered the truth, my father had drilled me in memory exercises, training me to remember every detail of an image I was given. So, memorizing a holo of the stronghold's blueprint had been no problem. Once I was through the door, I took stock of where I was – what looked to be one of the minor computer hubs of the fort. I went straight through and took a left at the next passage. I ran through the corridors of the Imperial base, fear of discovery and fear for Han pounding through my system.

The first stormtrooper unit I encountered met the same fate their four counterparts in the hangar had. I was more afraid running away from this one because it was considerably more noisy than the first skirmish, but I was off like a shot after the last trooper fell, so I still had a grasp on the element of surprise. I encountered two more units before descending to the containment unit below ground. I ghosted down the stairwell, hurrying along on the cat feet Jix had drilled into me. I paused at the door and took a peek through the crack. Two troopers, both without their helmets on, were seated by the half circle of computers that monitored each cell. There were two microphones on the table before them and a camera mounted in the far corner of the room. I swore silently. I would have to use the Force. I eased out the tiniest tendril of power and cast it out. It moved the camera ninety degrees to the side, so it was looking straight along one wall. I cast the tendril out again, this time into the machinery of the microphones. I teased the tendril in through the inner workings and finally found the wires I was looking for – the wires connecting them to the other communicators throughout the base. Through the Force, I _tugged_, separating the wire from its source. Sure enough, when the guards tried to work them, nothing happened. I slipped through the door and lunged at the two, hitting one hard on the temple and kicking the other in the back of the neck. When both slumped over, I began scanning the screens in front of me, hoping to find the cell that Han was in. Nothing. Either Han's cell didn't have a camera in it, or he was imprisoned on a different level of the building. Knowing that the clock was ticking, I set free the tendril of Force connection once again and _listened_. Immediately, I was assaulted with the same sensation I had felt on the shuttle, only…dampened. I knew my father had set a more permanent shield around me to protect me from Han's pain, but I hadn't sensed it at work until the present moment when the source of the agony was so close. Even with the shield, I was hard-pressed to concentrate on following it, even with the trail so glaringly obvious. I took the door to the right of the wall of surveillance videos and darted down the corridor. The farther I walked, the more I was overcome by Han's pain until I was reduced to leaning on the wall for support every few feet. My senses were so overcome that I didn't sense the troopers guarding his cell until the very last minute. I stopped short of rounding the corner and planned my attack. A second later, I whirled around the corner and leaped at them. These, unlike those in the surveillance room, were in full armor: I resorted to kicking them to the ground, then stabbing down into the chink, as it were, in their armor. At close range, I had the advantage over their long energy rifles, and I took full advantage of that.

When the last one's life force had faded, I took the access card from the commander and opened the cell door. I had braced myself for what I was going to find, but that didn't lessen the impact. I felt myself begin to crumble at what I was seeing: Han was spread-eagled across a metallic frame, his hands and feet cuffed to it. He hung limply, barely conscious, his cuffs the only things keeping him upright. His hair had lost its shine, and there were bags under his eyes. Crows feet wrinkles outlined his eyes, and there were grey streaks in his hair. He looked as if he had aged thirty years. I ran over to Han, tears clouding my vision and streaming down my face. I knelt down so I was looking up into his face, then put my hand to his cheek and whispered, "Han? Han, wake up. Han, wake up! Han, I'm not going to lose you now!"

His half-shut eyes fluttered open. "Another hallucination…" he murmured when he saw me. "Go away. You're not real," he said, shaking his head weakly.

"But Han, I _am_ real!" I exclaimed. "It's me, Leia!"

He lifted his head a fraction of an inch. A spark returned to his eyes. "Leia?" he murmured disbelievingly, still barely clinging to consciousness. "Is it…really you?"

"Yes, it's me, you scoundrel," I said, half-laughing, half-sobbing. "It's Leia."

His eyes filled with so much emotion, it was almost hard to bear. Hope, fear, a new bravery, but superseding all, an emotion that I had only seen once before – when he was being lowered into the carbonite chamber and he wouldn't take his eyes from me. I leaned into him, resting my forehead against his. Tears were streaming down our faces, but we were laughing at the same time. We were together again.

Then Han stiffened, writhing against his cuffs, and the moment was shattered. When I had first walked in, I had heard the sharp buzz-crackle of electricity coursing through the cuffs binding him: now that sound had intensified. I began looking frantically for the electricity's source. I traced the cord connecting the metal frame back to a small, unassuming-looking box in the corner of the room. I turned it over in my hands, searching for _its_ power source. Strangely enough, I found no battery, no wire, nothing to channel the obscene amounts of energy that the box was producing. Then I looked through the Force. What could only be described as a power cord of Dark energy stretched from the box through the walls to a living source. Somehow, Mara Jade was feeding this torture device with Force energy. I felt rage swell up within me.

Too late, I remembered that I was to be silent in the Force at all costs. Almost immediately, I felt a presence outside the door – the same dark, empty one I had begun to hate with my whole being – a presence that had emerged almost out of the blue. _She must have doubled back_, I thought, with a cool-headedness I had never felt before pervading me. There was no hiding from her now. In a last-ditch effort to distract her, I told my father through the Force bond to set off whatever his 'distraction' was. A distant explosion rumbled. I heard a comm squawk outside the door as the officers under her command reported back to her. I heard her say, "That's not important right now, Jayce. Send three squadrons down to containment unit 12C5 _immediately_." With that, she shut her comm off and swiped her access card. The door creaked open, and she strolled in.

"You know, Skywalker," she said, "I was surprised that you allied with Vader. Isn't he supposed to be your greatest enemy or something? 'Cause he killed your father?" Then she turned. The first real emotions I had sensed from her flooded past her shields – shock and confusion. "It's been _you_? This whole time? Not him? I…" Then her face settled into a sneer that looked like it was a permanent fixture on her face. "Princess Organa," she said, her voice dripping with politeness so insincere, she could have taught some of the members of the Senate a thing or two. "It is an absolute pleasure to finally meet you."

"The pleasure's all mine, Jade," I responded with equal insincerity.

"You will be coming with me, _Your Highness_. The Emperor desires to have a few words with you," Jade said, her cold eyes becoming colder.

"I'm honored, truly I am," I responded, "but I'm afraid I'll have to decline."

"You _will_ come to your new Master," she said in a flat, almost unemotional voice that belied the rising storm cloud of Dark energy beginning to circle around her.

"But you see, Jade," I said, sinking into the eye of my hurricane, "I already serve a Master, and I have no intention to serve another."

Her green eyes darkened, and she launched herself at me, igniting her lightsaber on the way. From the instant her weight shifted, my lightsaber was up and lit. The blades collided. Soon, we were dueling around the room, each of us taking advantage of the walls surrounding us to leap away or at the other. Block, block, slash, parry, leap and slash. Over and over and over again. The fight seemed to last eons, or was it seconds? She had the edge on me with the years of intense lightsaber training under her belt. I had nothing much more than the Level Two skills my father had drilled into me and a natural intuition for combat. She began forcing me into a corner, milking the three inches in height she had on me for all they were worth. Our blades locked, hilt-to-hilt. She pressed down.

She taunted me through her teeth, a triumphant fire in her eyes. "After you submit to the Emperor, he will want to keep this smuggler around," she said mockingly. "Since he means so much to you, it would be a shame to let him go and die on a hellhole like this. He'd be cared for better there than you Rebel scum ever could. The Emperor will take you to see him daily. But sadly, you will see in his eyes that he no longer knows who you are – you'll never have to wonder about his _mental_ wellbeing again!"

A roaring filled my ears. The dark red glow of my lightsaber expanded so it filled my vision, painting everything I saw in red. I felt the Force pour into me, filling me with glorious power. I shoved her back so our blades were disengaged. I advanced on her, my lightsaber at the ready. I knew without the help of a mirror that my eyes were the glowing red they had become the night I learned the truth about my father. Looking into Mara Jade's eyes, I saw something there that I'm sure no other being had ever seen – fear. There was no doubt in my mind of what to do next. I leapt at her, my lightsaber blocking her quick strike and my left foot kicking her thigh. She didn't react, except to pull in more of the Force. Back and forth and back and forth we fought, only now it was her on the defensive and I on the offensive. I battered her mercilessly, hitting, kicking and drawing blood every chance I got. For another eternity, this went on until she was bruised, bloodied, and severely weakened. She blocked my ever-strengthening strikes, but finally could not stop the descent of my lightsaber hilt onto her temple. She collapsed, her eyes rolling up in their sockets. I summoned her lightsaber to my palm. Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand, lay prone at my feet, beaten and humiliated. I crouched down so that my face was near hers. She looked up at me stubbornly. She knew what was coming, but refused to submit to it. I stood up and thumbed the activation switch on her lightsaber.

"Mara Jade, you are found guilty of treason, attempted murder, and the administering of cruel and unusual punishments," I intoned, my voice cold and my heart lacking all pity. "You are hereby sentenced to death." I lifted her chin up with the Force to ensure that she met my eyes. "Long live Emperor Vader," I concluded. I raised the lightsaber above my head and drove it down.

In that span of seconds where I drove her lightsaber down, time seemed to slow down. I saw clearly a malicious smile spread across her face. Then her own lightsaber pierced her back, and she lived no more. I straightened with a sigh of relief, then noticed something was wrong. Something was missing…The sound of the electrical box had stopped! I looked to Han with joy and triumph at this release, then felt my stomach drop out from beneath me. He was breathing, but shallower and shallower by the second. But what was even more frightening was the lack of movement at his carotid artery. I quickly slashed through his cuffs and caught him as he fell, lowering him slowly to the ground. I rolled him over onto his back and quickly checked for a pulse. There was none. "HELP!" I shrieked, not caring who came, just so long as they could help him. I frantically tried to do CPR but to no avail. To late, I realized that Han's heart had adjusted to compensate for the constant electricity that came from that machine: the very thing that kept Han in constant pain kept him alive. The box had been tied to Jade's life force – I realized that now too. If she died, he died as well. I swore at him, yelled at him, pleaded with him to _wake up_. Tears were dripping down onto his shirt as I tried to restore a pulse that I knew would never come. After a long time, the part of me that was the focusing lens of my being took back the reins. I sat back on my heels, rivulets of salt water washing the sweat from my cheeks. I held his hand, that big, calloused hand that had massaged mine all those centuries ago. I brushed a lock of hair hanging over his eyes to the side, then brushed it back to its earlier position: Han would want to go out looking like the kind of man he was, a scruffy-looking tough guy. I put my palm to his face, tracing the line of his jaw. He was breathing, barely. I watched his chest rise and fall ….. rise …... fall …... rise …... fall …... rise ... fall ... ... rise ... ... fall ... ... rise ... ... fall ... ... ... rise ... ... ... ... ... fall ... ... ... ... ... ... rise ... ... ... ... ... ... ... fall ... ... ... ... ... ... ... rise ... ... ... ... ... ... ... fall ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...


	22. Epilogue

Shattering. My heart is shattering and razor-sharp shards of it pierce my insides, tearing me apart. I'm bleeding and my tears _are_ my blood, or are the drops of blood my tears? Intermingling, dancing together, crimson-dark with salty-clear. My tears wash his face, wiping away the dust and the scarlet streaks across his forehead. Never have I seen him so peaceful; never have I seen him so emotionless. No cocky, lopsided grin on his face. No devilish spark in his dark eyes. Inanimate. A void now where once _he_ was. His hand rests in mine – cold...so cold. Nothing exists but him and I, and I cannot let him go. From somewhere within me, a scream tears loose. A scream of anger. A scream of pain. A scream of sorrow. He is still...so still. I scream again and again and again, until my voice can take no more even though my heart still has more screams to give. Then the screams have stopped. They have been replaced by one word – 'Gone'. Nothing but him and I and that word. I murmur it again and again and again and hope that if I say it enough times, it will lose its power. _Gone_. Another scream tears itself from my heart, my torn-apart heart. Then all is silent. I look down at him. One diamond drop hits his forehead. Then I know no more.

_**Tenebrae factae sunt**__._

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><p><span>Author's Note<span>:

Thank you so much for sticking with this story until its end! Your excitement for the story inspired me to keep it going. Thank you to everyone who has left feedback for me, most notably Lady Misty Sman-Esay who reviewed almost every chapter, giving me the words of advice I so desperately needed.

A couple of notes about what's coming next: I _will_ be writing a sequel, titled _Princess of Darkness_ that will pick up this story and carry it further. I'm going to start writing it this summer, but don't expect anything to be posted until September at the earliest because I kind of need a break. Instead, I'm going to spend the rest of the summer posting my new fic, _The Slave's Gain_. It's another Leia-centric AU, where Leia goes to Tatooine instead of Luke, but is captured and sold into slavery. It'll focus a lot on her relationship to her father, and later, her brother. If anyone's interested, it'll start popping up when July hits.

Oh, and _**Tenebrae factae sunt**_ is Latin for "And darkness fell" – my way of depicting the curtain falling after an act.

Thank you again! :)


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